


Threads

by DontCallMeLinz



Category: Thor (Movies)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-22 15:36:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 91,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22851778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontCallMeLinz/pseuds/DontCallMeLinz
Summary: Darcy Lewis is a Very Smart little girl. This, no one can dispute, though her parents are at least a little in denial about it. She's very smart in a world that doesn't like girls to be smart.What if she wished for an adventure, somewhere that smart little girls aren't looked down on?And what if she got her wish? And found out she's even more different than she ever suspected?
Comments: 67
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

7-and-a-quarter-years-old Darcy Lewis is bored.

Not that this is an unusual thing, but it’s bothering her in particular right this moment because two days ago, she got in a fight at school and now she’s on restriction and not allowed to leave her room to find something to divert her attention. But James Matthews totally deserved getting punched in the nose for pulling her hair and calling her a baby because she’s the youngest in their class since she got moved up two grades this year and trying to take her glasses off her face, so she refuses to apologize for giving him a bloody nose. Unfortunately, an apology is the only thing that will make her parents take her off restriction early, so she’s doomed to boredom with only some toys and a shelf of books to occupy her for at least the next 2 weeks, only allowed to leave her bedroom to go to school, eat, and use the bathroom. So now, on Friday evening after dinner, she’s been banished to her bedroom for the rest of the evening with NOTHING to do.

Her toys don’t really hold much interest, since she’d started asking for books for Christmas and birthdays like 3 years ago, so they’re pretty much all her old baby toys. Likewise, she’s too big for almost all of her dress-up clothes now, having not gotten much new stuff since she learned to read and wanted books instead. And she’s already read all of her books at least a few times, so that won’t hold her attention for long. Re-reading books is okay if they’re good ones, but it’s never as exciting as the first time with a brand new story.

Narnia is her favorite. Standing in front of her bookshelf, she moves to reach for The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe before pausing to think.

How can she make it more fun?

Maybe if she dresses up like one of the characters? Except her only princess dress is too small for her. Moving to her closet instead, she examines her options. There’s not many. Her mom had just cleared out all her old clothes a few months ago and taken everything that was too small to Goodwill.

Pushing past some coats and sweaters and the plain dresses that she wears sometimes for school, Darcy looks critically at a few dresses that she has yet to wear even once because her mom always forgets that she hates pink and buys her stuff in various shades of the puke-inducing color.

With that thought, she grins and pulls everything on the rod to one side, digging into the far corner.

There is ONE dress that she’d been allowed to pick out all on her own. It was for her Aunt Carolyn’s wedding over the summer. It’s not very good for playing in, because her mom says it’s too nice to get dirty playing outside, so she’d nearly forgotten it entirely, having not had any reason to think about it since the event. But it would be fine for sitting and reading. Pulling her jeans and tee shirt off, she yanks the soft, dark purple fabric from it’s hanger and wiggles the dress over her head with some difficulty. Once it’s on, she takes the time to tie the dark green ribbon around her waist in a bow like she does her shoelaces, re-doing it 3 times before it looks right. Smiling, she twirls around to make the skirt fly out from around her ankles.

Task of dressing complete, she kicks her dirty clothes in the general direction of her hamper, then stops to think again. What else can she do to make re-reading Narnia more fun? The only place she really has to sit comfortably is her bed.... Unless....

A wardrobe is like a closet, right? Bouncing over to her bed, she pulls the pillows off it, then drags her comforter with her as she hauls them to the closet, then shoves it all into the back corner. Once they’re arranged, she looks at her reading spot critically for a moment before deciding it isn’t enough. So, from under her bed, she pulls the clear plastic box where her mom keeps her sheets and stuff. It also holds the thicker comforter that she uses in the winter months and a couple extra pillows for the unlikely event that she ever has a sleepover. Removing those, she adds them to the back corner of the closet, then nods in satisfaction at her new reading spot.

But her closet’s kinda dark. It’ll be hard to read in there, even with the door open.

Slowly spinning around, her eyes examine her bedroom critically, quickly settling on her only option. It takes a minute to get the lamp from her nightstand, because the plug is blocked by her bed, but she gets it eventually, plugging it back in in the other plug behind her door that’s usually only used when her mom vacuums and setting the lamp as far back in the closet as it will reach.

Perfect.

Collecting her book, she pulls the closet door mostly shut behind her, turns on the lamp, and wiggles and adjusts her blanket-and-pillow nest until she’s comfy, then takes off her glasses - they’re for seeing far away, not reading - and sinks into the story of the Pevensies. 

Sometime around the children being led back to Mr. Beaver’s house, she hardly notices falling asleep as she wishes with all her might that she could get whisked away on an adventure to another world, where magic is real and she might become a princess someday. 

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

What Darcy DOES notice is that, when she opens her eyes next, she is most definitely NOT in her closet.

She still seems to be in SOME sort of closet, but it’s not the one in her bedroom.

Instead of her rail holding her clothes and a few pairs of shoes on the floor, she can vaguely make out the shapes of shelves in the dark space, and tentative reaching out to touch them reveals stacks of neatly folded fabric. The shelves right in front of her contain very soft, thick material that she can’t possibly guess what it would be for, but the next section over feels more familiar; a bit fluffy, almost like towels, but still impossibly soft.

Well, at home, her mom keeps the extra towels in the hall closet with the sheets for the guest room. Maybe she’s in a closet like that.

Satisfied that there probably isn’t anything that’s gonna hurt her, Darcy’s curiosity takes over and she feels her way around the surprisingly large space until she finds a door. Butterflies in her tummy at what could be on the other side, she turns the handle slowly, like when she’s sneaking out of her room and doesn’t want her parents to hear her door opening.

Once the door is pushed open a crack, she looks through the gap and finds that she probably doesn’t need to worry much about being caught. It’s dark, and the massive hallway she’s in looks totally deserted, lit only by some weird sort of lamps spaced out down the walls. She can’t quite tell, and she now wishes she’d thought to keep her glasses on despite not needing them for reading. Breathing a quiet sigh of mixed relief and excitement, she slips out the door and leaves it open slightly so she can tell which one she came out of when she comes back. It looks like there’s lots of doors in the hallway, so she wants to make sure she goes back to the right one.

Curious, but also not particularly wanting to get lost, Darcy decides that she’ll just go down the hall and try to figure out where she is. The closet is at a dead end with just a tall window to the side looking out into what looks like some trees, so she has only one direction to go, and she stays close to the wall on her right side as she starts walking, the smooth stone floor a little cold on her bare feet, but not too bad.

The further down the hall she gets, the further apart and bigger the doors lining the hallway get. All the doors are shut, and she isn’t quite brave enough to try opening any of them. Eventually, she reaches a wider section and she stops cautiously as she examines the fancy sitting area that looks like it came straight out of a castle from a Disney movie, and the wide windows on the other side. 

With another glance around to be sure she’s alone, Darcy turns to walk through the sitting area, fingers running over the soft fabric on the weirdly-shaped couches and chairs, and stopping herself from picking up the things she sees on tables between them to have a closer look. There’s one little basket of fabric and needles and string that reminds her of the basket at her Nana’s house that sits next to Nana’s recliner, holding whatever sewing project Nana’s working on at the time.

Her attention, however, gets diverted quickly as she gets closer to the windows. They’re not actually windows. She can feel a slight breeze coming in now that she’s closer, and she doesn’t see any weird light reflections that glass would make in the dark.

Instead, it’s archways that open up onto a balcony. The balcony has a few more of the weird couches and some tables, but what catches Darcy’s attention is what’s beyond the low wall at the edge of the space. Walking right up to the wall and leaning against it, her eyes take in the slightly blurry but unmistakable sight of a massive city. Whatever building she’s in is at the top of some kind of hill, and lights dotted around give her an impression of the many buildings spreading out around her. It reminds her of last summer when her parents took her and her brother to Disneyland and they’d stayed in a really tall hotel and she could see all the lights spreading out around them.

The next thing to catch her eye is the sky.

It’s nighttime, but not nighttime like any night she’s seen before. The stars look so close that she doesn’t even need her glasses to see them. And there’s SO MANY of them. It looks like someone had dumped a bunch of silver glitter onto dark paper. Except between the stars isn’t just black like she’s used to. There’s big swirls of green and blue and purple like someone painted the sky like one of those school-picture backgrounds, except actually pretty.

Tearing her eyes away from the beautiful sight with some difficulty, Darcy turns and tries to get a look at the building she’s in, but she can’t really tell much except that it’s absolutely MASSIVE. Even tipping her head all the way back, she can’t see the top, and both sides seem to go on forever as well. Some lumpy, shadowy shapes that she thinks are more balconies are the only thing she can really make out about it.

After another look out over the pretty view, she makes herself move back inside and continue her exploration, more determined than ever to figure out where she is.

Moving down the hallway with a little more confidence, since she has yet to see a single other person and doesn’t really expect to in the middle of the night, Darcy looks more closely at the changes in the hall as she moves. Where before the walls had been fairly plain, with just occasional paintings hung between doors, now there’s more paintings, bigger ones, and sometimes ones that are made of fabric that hang all the way from the ceiling to the floor. And the ceiling is REALLY high up, so they’re HUGE.

Suddenly, the hallway opens up again, but this time on the other side, with a big set of stairs. Actually, she thinks it’s technically 2, one side of them leading down, the other going up. But it’s the opposite side of this area that catches her interest.

A big archway with no door in it looks into an exciting sight for Darcy.

Rows and rows and more rows of bookshelves make this room, without question, a library.

With no hesitation, Darcy veers into it.

It’s lit with more of those weird lights that seem to be attached to every other shelf, alternating sides. They’re still pretty dim, but she thinks that’s probably because it’s nighttime and they don’t expect too many people to be looking for books in the middle of the night. But it’s enough light for Darcy to see the writing on the outside of the books lining the shelves.

But she can’t read any of them. Some of the letters look a little bit like what she’s used to, but she thinks all these books might be in some other language.

So, instead of pulling any out, she wanders through the rows keeping an eye out for any that look like they might be in English. Before too long, she’s discovered several different spots that there’s breaks in the rows of shelves for tables, not unlike the library at her school. These tables, though, are heavy-looking wood, with sturdy and comfortable-looking chairs that have very cushy seats around them. Some are big like they’re meant for a group to work at, or for people to spread out with a bunch of work. Some on the row that follows the wall are small, with just enough space for one person and a few books in a little cubby-like space between shelves that reminds her of the desks in the detention room that she’s had to go to for most of the day since she punched stupid James Matthews.

All of them have stacks of some thick paper - like construction paper but all white - and funny-looking pens that remind her of the fountain pen in her dad’s office that he doesn’t ever actually use and little bottles of some liquid that she suspects might be ink for the pens, but she doesn’t open any to find out.

Eventually, she gets to a corner of the room, which she thinks might be the kids’ section. The tables and most of the chairs are smaller, like they’re not made for adults. There’s a big window with a slightly different but still very pretty view over the city, and a book had been left laying open on one of the tables has pictures on almost every page like a kids book for after they learned to read but before they move up to chapter-books. The letters are still gibberish to her, though.

But, she figures this is probably the place she’ll find something she can understand (if there’s anything in English), so she starts taking a closer look at the books in this area.

On the fifth shelf she’s searching, she finds a book that she can’t help but immediately take to one of the tables that’s fairly close to one of the lights to start reading. She’s not quite sure why, but it’s like as soon as her fingers touched it she just knew that this is the book she needs to start with, even though it still doesn’t look like a language she knows. Except... if she unfocuses her eyes a little, the words seem to.... Flicker. Like the lines are rearranging themselves to something that looks much more familiar.

Determined to decipher the writing, Darcy starts trying to find the way to look at the book so that the words make sense but that she can also actually read them. It takes what feels like a really long time for her to get it right. If she pays too much attention to it, the letters morph back to whatever language it is. But if she doesn’t pay enough attention, then she can’t actually read the words even once they change to English.

By the time she’s managed to read the first few pages of the introduction, she knows it’s a book to teach something called Allspeak, which she thinks is probably the language it’s written in when it isn’t in English. At that point, she’s also VERY tired, and has a headache, and the sky outside the window is starting to get lighter.

It’s at this point that Darcy begins to panic a little. She’d been here all night. She still doesn’t know where here is, or how she got here, or how to get home. And if it’s getting light out, that means people will be waking up anytime, if they haven’t started to already, and she doesn’t know if she’s even allowed to be here and she does NOT want to get in trouble. So, she puts the book back on the shelf where she found it and hurries back toward the place she’d arrived in.

There are, indeed, people moving around, but she doesn’t actually encounter any of them on her journey back. She can just hear an occasional voice behind a door, and there’s an outline against the lightening sky of a person standing out on the balcony she’d been to earlier as she hurries by, but she doesn’t slow down to look at them. Just strives to keep her feet silent as they hit the stone flooring even as she half-runs.

Thankfully, the door to the closet is still cracked open the way she left it, and she slips in as fast as possible, pulling it shut gently behind her.

Turning to examine what she has already come to think of as “her” closet, she finds that there’s some light coming in through a small window over a slightly-less-tall shelf at the far end of the space. It’s a lot bigger that she would expect a closet to be, with the shelves she’d felt stacked with the towel-like things and what she thinks are probably sheets or something down one side of a walking space that’s wide enough for one grownup to walk easily or two to pass by each other if they squeeze a little. It goes really far back. Like, almost as far as the hallway in their house that goes from one side all the way to the garage door on the other.

Darcy supposes that makes sense if there’s a door to the hallway and also a window. The sitting area that she found is pretty big, so the closet would have to be the same distance as the hallway to the balcony.

Heading further back, she finds even more different stuff on the shelves, but still things that her mom would definitely put in the hall closet. Extra pillows and quilts, some patterned fabric with loops sticking outward from the shelf that remind Darcy of the long curtains downstairs at home.

Speaking of home, Darcy still has no clue how to get there.

There doesn’t seem to be anything special about this closet, and she’s never noticed anything interesting about hers either. She hadn’t been doing anything she hasn’t done a gajillion times before when she found herself here; just sitting and reading. And that couldn’t be it either, because she’d just spent what she suspects is hours working on reading the Allspeak book and she hadn’t transported anywhere. The pillows and blankets she’d been on are the same ones she’d been using since she got a big-kid bed when she was 4. 

Tiredly, she sits down and leans against the shelf at the end under the window (this one has glass, she idly notes) and tries to remember exactly what she’d been doing at home.

Closing her eyes, she thinks back to every little detail. The Pevensies had just found out that Tumnus had been arrested and met Mr. Beaver. Darcy had been very cozy and feeling a little sleepy, wishing that she could have an adventure like that. Wishing. Maybe that’s what happened. She wished to have a closet like the Pevensies’ magic wardrobe. So maybe she needs to wish to go home again.

She wishes with all her might, picturing herself reappearing in her cozy reading spot, but nothing happens. A couple times, she opens her eyes to find it getting progressively lighter and lighter as the sun rises, but every time she’s still in the strange hall closet.

By now, she’s exhausted, and just wants to sleep. But she also doesn’t want to get caught.

Looking around and reaching out to shift some of the items on the shelf next to her, she realizes that the shelves are wide and deep enough that she could probably shuffle some of the pillows on the very bottom ones here in the back corner and sleep behind them without getting caught.... As long as someone didn’t come in for the specific pillows she’s behind. 

Never before has she glad that she’s small for her age, but she is now as she proceeds to pull out one stack of the soft pillows and wedge herself into the space before reaching out to pull them back into place.

It’s dark and surprisingly comfortable, and Darcy finds herself relaxing easily, heading toward sleep as she hopes she can figure out how to get home. Adventures are fun and all, but if she’s stuck here forever, she’d really miss her parents, and even her dumb older brother, Jake.

There’s a feeling like water flowing through her and she thinks that she finally understands why people call it “falling” asleep as she feels like her brain plummets down into nothingness. How had she never noticed that before?


	2. Chapter 2

Someone is gently shaking her, and Darcy’s eyes snap open in a panic, only to confusedly find her mother crouched in front of her.

She’s back in her closet at home, in her nest of blankets, with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe tucked between her legs and her chest where she’d apparently curled up in her sleep. Or was it sleep? Her trip to the Other Place had felt far too real to be a dream. And while she does feel tired, her body doesn’t. It’s just a little sore from sleeping in an unfamiliar place.

“Sweetheart, it’s time for breakfast.” her mother says cheerfully, as though finding her daughter asleep in the closet instead of bed is nothing out of the ordinary at all. “Were you in here all night? And why are you wearing your pretty dress to sleep?”

Okay, so there’s at least SOME questions.

“I wanted to be like the Pevensies. I think I fell asleep reading.” Darcy answers as her mother backs out of the small space and gives her a hand up. She’s grateful for it, her legs are half-asleep still from how she’d apparently slept and she stumbles a little.

Her mom laughs a little, and Darcy can’t tell if it’s at her answers or her sleepily stumbling out of the closet. “Well, dad’s making pancakes, so go brush your teeth and come out before Jake eats all of them.” she lightly orders before leading Darcy out of her bedroom and gently pushing her across the hall toward the bathroom.

Darcy thinks she says “okay” but can’t really remember as she goes into the bathroom for her morning routine, very preoccupied with the strange events overnight.

As she uses the toilet, she idly thinks that she should figure out what to do about that in the Other Place if she can figure out how to get back there again. If she even needs to. She hadn’t felt the need to pee at all last night, but she also hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since dinner, so it may have been coincidence.

After breakfast, she’s ordered to go change into regular clothes because her dad is taking Jake to his the soccer game, and her mom has errands to run, so she has to go with because she can’t stay home alone. At this declaration, she pouted slightly and said that she’s plenty old enough to stay home alone because she knows to keep the doors locked and how to call 911 if there’s an emergency.

This got another laugh, this time from both her parents, before her dad decrees that she wouldn’t be left home alone until she’s at least Jake’s age.

“But that’s not for FIVE YEARS!” she whines, feeling plenty responsible. More responsible than her dumb older brother who can’t even manage to keep his stupid room clean and wouldn’t remember to brush his teeth if their mom didn’t tell him to twice a day. And she wants to figure out what the heck had happened last night, goshdarnit!

But orders had been given and are now being repeated, and if she continues to argue, her restriction will be extended, so Darcy complies, sulking back to her room and changing out of the dress and into her favorite jeans and a sweater, and pulling on her new Converse that had been acquired on the School Shopping trip several weeks before. Unhappily pulling her brush through her hair, Darcy silently promises herself that she WILL figure it out and go back to the Other Place. No matter what.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

After dinner that Saturday, Darcy doesn’t utter a peep about having to go back to her room after her and Jake finished doing the dishes. But she did have to stop herself from looking too eager to get back there, as her parents would surely think she’s having too much fun when she’s supposed to be on restriction and start checking on her more.

Deciding she’s best off doing everything exactly the same as the night before to get back to the Other Place, Darcy changes back into her pretty dress and settles into the nest in her closet with her book and the lamp and starts trying to wish herself back to the closet in the hallway in the Other Place that she’d appeared in before. 

It doesn’t work. No matter how hard she wishes, she keeps opening her eyes to see her bedroom closet.

After she-doesn’t-even-know-how-long, she decides to take a break and actually keep reading the book. Maybe THAT had something to do with it. Without meaning to, she gets sucked into the story.

And, just before Aslan trades his life for Edmund’s, her eyes start drifting shut and she remembers the falling feeling from when she’d come home that morning. It rushes through her again and she hopes she wakes up in the closet where she’d fallen asleep in the Other Place. She really wants to finish that book with the Allspeak so she can read the OTHER books there. They seem like her best shot at maybe finding out what’s going on.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

Once more, Darcy’s wish is granted.

When she opens her eyes next, she’s back wedged into the bottom shelf behind a stack of pillows.

She expects her body to be stiff and sore and uncooperative like when she’d gotten home that morning, but it’s surprisingly easy to just crawl out and stand, replacing the pillows. Looking up at the little window, she sees it’s dark out, but she can already hear that there’s still people in the hallway outside the door, faint voices filtering in through the small gap under it. Not many, but enough that she knows she’ll have to wait to go out.

Pulling out the stack of pillows she’d only just put away, Darcy plops herself down on them to think while she waits.

It seems like falling asleep is the key to moving between her home and this Other Place. She has to wish just as she’s falling asleep. Which requires being aware of when she’s falling asleep. That’s easy enough, it’s not like there’s usually a ton of distractions right at bedtime. The significance of the closets is yet to be determined, but she knows it works, so she’ll stick with that for now.

It feels like forever before the noise from the hallway tapers off, and Darcy wonders if the time here is the same as at home. She knows about time zones. Wherever this place is clearly has a different language, so they may be in a different one than her house. But eveningtime when she’s falling asleep seems to be more or less eveningtime here, too. Maybe she should wear a watch or something next time. But it would still say the time it was at home. But at least she could keep track of when she needs to get back to this closet and go home so she can be up in time for school or breakfast.

The major roadblock for that plan is that she doesn’t actually have a watch. 

As she replaces the pillows again and creeps toward the door, ears perked for any sign of movement on the other side, Darcy thinks maybe she should include a watch along with books on her Christmas list this year. She figured out Santa isn’t real like 3 years ago, but as long as she still pretends, she gets extra presents, so she writes a letter to Santa every year after Thanksgiving, including a wishlist, for her mom to “mail” to the north pole.

After standing with her ear to the door for a little while and not hearing anything, Darcy risks carefully turning the handle and peeping out. Finding the hallway as far as she can see empty and cursing herself for again not wearing her glasses, she slips out and closes the door all the way this time, now confident she’ll be able to find it again.

Hurrying down the hall much faster than the night before, she’s surprised at how quickly she reaches the sitting area. It had seemed like much further last night.

Staying close to the wall, she holds her breath and peers around the corner to make sure the sitting area is empty and quietly sighs with relief when it’s abandoned, looking exactly the same as the night before. With another glance up and down the hall to make sure nobody had come out of a room while she wasn’t paying attention, she hurries on towards the library, again surprised at how quickly she arrives there.

Darting in through the archway, she turns and immediately goes into the very first row, following the wall back in the general direction of what she has dubbed “the kids section” instead of wandering like last time. She only slows as she comes upon the gaps between shelves to make sure she’s actually alone before moving on.

Finding the area she’s heading towards just as empty as the rest of the library, she retrieves the Allspeak book immediately and sits to start working on the right amount of focus to read it.

It still takes her a little bit to get that balance of not-paying-attention correct, but not nearly as long as before. The book isn’t very thick - thicker than her Narnia book, but only about as thick as The Hobbit - but it feels like it takes her forever to make any progress on it. She’s a fast reader, and has a high reading level for her age (she proudly peruses the 6th-and-7th grade section of the school library and would do so for the higher grade levels if there were any at the elementary school, while many of the people even in her 5th-grade class are stuck down in the 3’s and 4’s section), but maintaining the focused-not-focused state she needs to to read isn’t easy for long stretches and she can hardly make it through a whole page before she has to take a break. Plus, the text is what she knows her teacher would call “dense”, meaning it has a lot of information that needs to be understood before she can move on. And there are words that she doesn’t quite know the meaning of.

At one point she stares at the nearest stack of paper and set of pens-and-ink, but she doesn’t know if she can take anything she isn’t wearing with her when she goes home. Her book doesn’t come with her. And she doesn’t have anywhere she knows will be safe to leave things here. So, she goes back over sections and re-reads them until she’s pretty sure she basically understands based on context clues, and tries to memorize the words she absolutely can’t figure out to look up in the dictionary when she gets home.

But, nevertheless, by the time her periodic glance out the window shows the first signs of a lightening sky, she has a basic understanding of what Allspeak is, and it excites her.

Allspeak isn’t a language, as she thought. Not exactly. Not a normal sort of language.

It’s a MAGICAL language.

One that makes you understand any other language, and lets you be understood by people that speak any language.

You can only learn it if you have magical aptitude. And you can only learn it with the book. A book that you couldn’t read if you couldn’t figure out how to use your magic to render it comprehensible.... Which Darcy is pretty sure means if you can make it a language you already understand. 

Which means that she, her, DARCY LEWIS.....

Has magic.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

Sunday crawls by in a painful and boring way.

She’d gone back to her closet in the Other Place before the sun started to come up for real, easily avoiding even the earliest risers, and securing herself in her little nook behind the pillows. It still took her awhile to fall asleep and go home because of her excitement over finding out that she has flubbing MAGIC.

As if being confined to her bedroom basically all day weren’t enough, she couldn’t even make puppy eyes at her dad to take her to the library to check out some new books to read to keep her occupied, because the library is closed on Sundays. She WAS able to creep out and grab the dictionary from the shelf in the living room at one point while her dad was washing his car in the driveway and her mom was across the street talking to Mrs. Ackerly.

Darcy looked up all the words she could remember being confused about and was happy to find that she’d been either right or near enough with her context-guesses for most of them.

She would’ve tried going back during the day, but she isn’t sure she wants to risk being found out, in either place. Her parents would definitely be mad. Even if she could tell them where she was going, she’s definitely breaking her restriction by going there. And she still doesn’t know if she’s allowed in the Other Place, and she has a feeling she wouldn’t be able to ask anyone and be able to really communicate until she masters Allspeak. Well, actually, as long as they’ve already mastered it, she’ll probably be fine, but she really doesn’t want to risk getting banned before she masters it. At the least. Ideally, she’d like to learn as much as possible from that massive library before she’s kicked out. If the library contains THAT magic book, it surely contains MORE magic books, and magic is definitely something she wants to learn about.

Besides, she has to fall asleep to go there, and, while her mind is tired, her body, for some reason, isn’t. In fact, her body is almost jittery with her perfectly normal amount of energy that usually gets released playing outside, especially on the weekend.

That night, her plans are foiled by her mother.

“No, Darcy.” she says, entering the room to find Darcy preparing to get in the closet. “In your bed tonight. There’s no way you’re sleeping well in there. We let it go for the weekend because we know you’re bored, but you have school in the morning and you can’t be falling asleep in class.”

“But mom-” Darcy starts to argue that she’s slept just fine in the closet, but she doesn’t make it far.

“No. Pillows and blankets back on your bed, and I expect you to be in it, wearing PJs, when I come and check in 5 minutes.” her mom says, shutting the door so at least Darcy can change in private.

Huffing, Darcy almost throws her book down on her nightstand before moving to pull the lighter of her blankets out of her reading nest, along with 2 of the pillows, and drops them all on her bed. It’s not exactly neat once she spreads the purple-and-white patterned comforter back out, but she’s about to get in bed anyway, so she doesn’t imagine it matters all that much. As commanded, she’s in PJs and laying in bed when her mom opens the door again to check on her and say goodnight.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

That week is a frustrating one for Darcy.

School is boring. She doesn’t have to spend her days in the detention room anymore, but class isn’t any more interesting. In fact, it’s less interesting. In ISS, she could blast through her assignments at her pace and spend the rest of the day reading or drawing or whatever. As long as it was a quiet activity. In class, the teacher moves so SLOW. Darcy knows it’s because she has to make sure everyone gets at least the basics before moving on, but Darcy gets frustrated because most of the reason the other kids don’t get it is because they refuse to just pay flubbing attention.

She wishes her parents had let her move up as far as the special testing person that the school brought in to evaluate her last year recommended. He’d wanted to move her up to 8th grade, but her parents were worried she’d be bullied for being so young or that she wouldn’t be able to handle it, like, socially.

As if she isn’t ALREADY getting bullied for only moving up to the 5th grade. It’s only 3 weeks into the school year and she’s already been in a fight. And Darcy knows it won’t stop, either. James Matthews and a few of his friends keep giving her dirty looks and whispering to each other. They’re just waiting for the adults to stop watching her so carefully to do much worse than pull her hair and call her names.

If she was up at the middle school, she might at least be LEARNING something.

Okay, to be fair, it’s not that she’s learning nothing. She obviously hasn’t seen any of this material yet. It’s just that she understands it pretty much as soon as it’s presented, either by the teacher or in the textbook. But she could’ve easily just studied over the summer to catch up to the 8th graders. And then she would’ve probably had at least a couple classes with Jake, who would keep an eye on her.

He’s an idiot most of the time, and they fight at least once a week, but he’s still her big brother. As far as he’s concerned, HE’s the only person allowed to beat her up, and he’d definitely stop anyone else who tried. Besides, he may not be the MOST popular dude, but he’s a starter on the boys’ soccer team and has a lot of friends, who he’d probably also enlist to watch out for her.

But her parents had resisted all of this logic.

And they complain about HER being stubborn.

So, she’s doomed to sit through boring days of trying to look attentive while idly doodling and daydreaming. Now, about magic. Real magic. Not storybook or Disney movie magic.

When Friday rolls around, it brings with it the second weekend of her restriction, and she sweet-talks her dad into taking her for a library trip right after school because he got home from work early for some reason or another. He reads a lot too, so it doesn’t take too much convincing. He understands her plight of facing 2-and-a-half days straight confined mostly to one room with no fresh reading material.

Usually, she heads straight for the fiction section, but today is different. Sick of the slow pace, she’d talked to the counselor at school and asked what the 6th and 7th graders learned, saying she wants to study ahead. Mrs. Jameson, aware of her situation, had been sympathetic, and the next day Darcy had gotten a folder containing the syllabi for what she’d be doing in class this whole year, and for every core class right up through the end of the 8th grade, where she SHOULD be this year.

So, instead of the fiction section, Darcy heads for the nonfiction and finds the shelves dedicated to copies of the textbooks all the local schools use and the recommended references, etc, to accompany them.

When she meets her dad at the checkout counter, he raises an eyebrow at her choices. She’d decided to tackle 6th grade English first, and grabbed the textbook as well as a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, and a handful of other books. So, she’d come out of it with fiction despite not looking for it.

“Darce?” he asks skeptically.

Scowling a little, she tries to curb how resentful she knows she’s going to sound as she replies, “What? Just because you and mom think I’m a social retard who can’t handle middle school doesn’t mean I shouldn’t at least TRY to learn something. 5th grade is the most boring bullpucky I’ve ever had to put up with, and I suffered through 2nd grade last year.” The librarian wisely keeps her eyes down and stamps the books Darcy had set on the counter without saying anything.

“Darcy, we don’t think-” her dad begins to say, but she refuses to be placated like some baby.

Glaring up at him, she cuts him off, “I get in trouble when I lie to YOU. Just because you’re an adult doesn’t make it okay for you to lie to ME. That’s exactly what you and mom said. You don’t want me to be in the grade I’m supposed to be in because you don’t think I would be able to handle the social change and be able to make friends. Or that I would get bullied. Well guess what dad? I didn’t just walk up and punch James Matthews for no flubbing reason. Not that any of you responsible adults ever bothered to ask WHY I punched him. And, news flash, NO older kids are ever going to want to be my friend, whether I’m 2 years younger or 5. In middle school I would at least have Jake. But now, by the time I get to middle school, he’ll be in high school and I’ll still be all alone, not learning ANYTHING.”

He doesn’t seem to have any immediate response, but she knows she’ll be in even more trouble when they get home. Certainly an extension on her restriction, at the least. Darcy turns back to the librarian and manages to force out a smile and a “thank you” as she takes her books and library card back, then turns to walk out the door, as her dad already has his in his hands.

The car ride home is silent, her dad not even playing the radio. Darcy sits in the passenger seat, books in her lap, arms crossed, frowning unhappily out the window.

She hadn’t meant to go off on him like that, but she’s really fed up of pretty much all the adults in her life. They all treat her like she’s stupid when she has categorically proven that she isn’t. She’s smart. Like, REALLY smart. And perfectly capable of logic, which seems to be a thing that at least her parents can’t manage.

Sure enough, as soon as they’re inside and she’s stomping towards the stairs up to her room, her dad tries to use his Dad Voice, but she’s too angry right now to care. “Darcy Marie-” he begins, immediately drawing the attention of her mother, who’s already in the kitchen working on dinner, and Jake, who’s sitting at the dining room table working on his homework.

She doesn’t make eye contact or stop, just running up the stairs and half shouting, “I’m not hungry! I’m not coming down for dinner!” and hurrying into her room, but making sure not to slam the door. THAT would DEFINITELY get her in more trouble. And also not help her case about her being mature enough to handle 8th grade. She hadn’t done anything bad enough for them to break the Cooldown Rule (stating that anyone in the house who’s upset or angry has a right to cool down in their bedroom without people barging in and trying to force them to talk before they’re ready), so she’s guaranteed peace until she initiates contact. Or at least tomorrow morning.

It’s a good thing. Because, while she will stand by everything she’d said at the library, she probably should’ve been at least a little more respectful about it. At the very least waited until they were in private. Causing a scene in public and embarrassing her parents is one of the top Do Not rules of the house.

Because heaven flubbing forbid anyone else knows that they’re humans who sometimes have bad days and/or disagree with each other. Insert eyeroll here.

Anyway, if she was forced to talk to them tonight, she’d only make it even worse. So it’s better that she doesn’t.

Heaving a big sigh, Darcy moves her backpack onto her bed as well, then pulls out her homework folder to get started. Not that it’ll take long. One double-sided page of long division, one chapter of reading from the science book and a 2-page worksheet on it, and a short writing assignment.

According to the clock on her nightstand, it takes her 35 minutes to complete all of it.

The only thing that cheers her up is that it’s Friday, which means there’s no reason to NOT sleep in her closet and go to the Other Place tonight. That thought carries her into reading the 6th-grade English textbook, answering the end-of-chapter questions on some paper from her binder for the first 6 chapters, and deciding to set it aside and start reading the Shakespeare book.

It’s getting late enough that she decides to set up in the closet to start reading that.

She’s just arranged the closet and is about to get into her dress when there’s a quiet knock on the door followed by Jake quietly calling “Darce?” through the door.

He’s the only person in the house she’s not mad at, so she opens the door to let him in.

There’s 2 oranges, an apple, and a granola bar in his hands, and he passes them to her saying, “I know you actually are hungry.”

“Thanks,” she tells him softly, appreciating the gesture.

Jake stuffs his hands in his jeans pockets, looking a little uncomfortable, like he always is talking about emotional stuff. “Dad sent me to the other room, but I still heard when he told mom what you said to him.” When Darcy doesn’t say anything, he continues, “I know you wouldn’t have punched that kid for no reason. I’m sorry I didn’t stick up for you sooner. Is it really that bad?”

Darcy shrugs and sets the food down on her bed, not sure how to answer him. “Him and his friends keep staring and whispering. As soon as the adults stop paying attention again, it’ll be a lot worse.”

When she glances up at him, she finds him frowning, clearly not happy with that. He’s quiet for a minute, then she’s part surprised and part not at what he eventually says. “I didn’t want you to come up to my grade before. You’re so smart, Darce. Learning is so easy for you. I have to work my butt off to have a B average to stay on first string for soccer. It’s kinda sucky to know that my kid sister is smarter than me, and I thought I’d hate having to compete with you on grades. But now I think I’d rather deal with that and be able to protect you than worry every school day that you’re gonna come home and tell me crap like that.”

Stepping forward, Darcy wraps her arms around his middle and he pulls his hands from his pockets to hug her back. “Thanks, Jake. I’ll be okay. Just in detention for fighting until I graduate and grounded until I’m 50.”

They both manage to laugh a little at that as they separate.

“Dad would love that. He’d never have to deal with you going on a date.” her brother jokes.

“And my big brother doesn’t have a problem with me dating?” she sasses back.

Jake shrugs with a smile. “They’re gonna move you up to where you’re supposed to be at some point. Maybe not right away, but they’ll come around eventually. That means you’re gonna graduate when you’re 13, and we’ll both be off at - preferably different - colleges by the time you even start seriously considering it. I’m about to turn 13 and I’VE barely started thinking about dating. So by the time you’re thinking about it, you’ll be surrounded by people too old for you for the first few years, and I’ll be busy with my own dating life and school and I can just ignore that it’s happening.”

Darcy snorts in amusement at his logic, then shove him a little towards the door, saying, “Get lost, dweeb. I have a bunch of really old plays to read.”

He shakes his head but goes with a simple “Night.”


	3. Chapter 3

Darcy can’t really tell in the dark, but it seems like her closet in the Other Place hadn’t even been touched in the days she hadn’t come.

It had taken her awhile to get to sleep. The first play in the book was The Taming of the Shrew, and she’d finished it in one go, worked up about the unfairness of it. She’d closed the book and thrown it as far as she could in the small space, nearly breaking her lamp. If all of Shakespeare is like that pile of poo, she’s in for a long education having to read it. Refusing to let a woman eat or have water to turture her into becoming an “obedient” bride. Tchegck. Disgusting.

Anyway, it had taken her awhile to calm down enough to fall asleep, but she’d managed to do it eventually.

It’s already quiet, but she still pauses to listen at the door briefly before opening it. The walk to the library is quick, with a pause only to make sure nobody’s in the sitting room before she passes by, and Darcy’s back to working on the Allspeak book within 5 minutes of arriving in the Other Place.

She reads through the first bit again, having now looked up the words she didn’t know, and she thinks it’s even easier to get to the sweet-spot in terms of focus. It seems to be around the same level of attention she has to pay in class so she knows what’s going on if she gets called on, but still be able to daydream and doodle. 

It’s still tiring to intentionally stay there for very long, though, necessitating a break every few minutes.

When she’s doing it in class, her mind naturally wavers in and out of focus as different things catch her attention. Keeping it in one range - one wavelength, almost - of focus is more difficult than it sounds.

But she’s gaining a better understanding of Allspeak with every page, even if she has to go back and re-read sections multiple times to make sure she understands. Another 7 words get memorized for her to look up at home, and, as the sun rises, she tucks the book back onto the shelf and pads back to her closet, quiet as a cat. One that doesn’t have a bell collar, obviously.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

“You’re getting so good at that, sweetheart!” Darcy’s mom says happily as she peers over Darcy’s shoulder while Darcy does the practice exercises in the book. She’d spotted pens like the ones in the library in the Other Place in the art room supply cupboard at school a couple weeks ago and asked the art teacher if she could borrow one to learn to use it. She’d ended up with a pen, a set of differently-sized and -shaped nibs, 4 bottles of ink in different colors, and a beginner’s instruction book, as well as a personal first lesson with Ms. Williams.

Darcy’s mom continues almost immediately, “You should use that to write your letter to Santa this year!” She’s been perpetually cheery since Darcy had the one-sided fight with her dad in the library 2 months previously, trying to make up for the constant tension in the house since then.

“I’ve been grounded for the last 2 and a half months, mom. I doubt I’m on the nice list this year.” Darcy replies flatly.

Indeed, she hasn’t been allowed to do much of anything remotely fun since she’d chewed out her dad. They’d taken her off of room restriction after a total of 3 weeks including the initial 2-week sentencing, with Jake rather rightly arguing her case that it obviously wasn’t doing anything to help her learn any lesson and was probably just making her resent them and feel like she couldn’t talk to them about anything.

So, she’d been allowed out of her room. Sort of.

She’s still not allowed to watch tv or play video games or play outside. They probably would’ve eased up even more if, at some point, she could’ve managed to apologize and even halfway sound like she meant it. Alas, she refused to apologize because she doesn’t feel she’d actually done anything wrong to apologize FOR. Her dad and her hardly speak more than to say “pass the salt” at the table. 

Darcy’s managed to avoid getting in another fight, but only barely, and it’s by making sure she’s in sight of an adult at school as much as humanly possible. It won’t last much longer. She knows, because James Matthews has begun recruiting a few of the meaner girls in class to help him.

Usually, the girls are relatively mild in their taunting, simply calling her names and laughing at her. But, after several weeks of Darcy sticking to their teacher or the librarian or the playground monitor like glue, he’d realized that the one place she can’t guarantee having an adult around to protect her is the girls bathroom. Any day, she’s expecting either Stacy Anderson and her little clique to corner her and do the deed on his behalf, or for them to scout and play lookout to let him corner her in there himself.

Now, it’s the end of November, there’s snow on the ground, and Darcy has never been less happy in her entire life. No matter how short that’s been so far.

In fact, the only thing she takes any joy in anymore is her nights in the Other Place.

She’s discovered that she doesn’t need to be in her closet to get there; she can go to and from her bed as well. She just needs to will herself there as she falls asleep. The season seems to have changed there as well, snow now blanketing the city that whatever building she goes to overlooks, and covering the balcony between her closet and the library. There seems to be something keeping the weather out, as no snow or rain wanders indoors past the arches. Darcy’s pretty sure it’s magic, but she couldn’t possibly say what at this juncture. The building has also gotten progressively chillier, and she’d appeared one night to find that there’s a fireplace in the sitting room that she hadn’t noticed before. Now, it crackles throughout the night, wood apparently being added by someone or other as people head to bed so it burns through the night.

It’s that which led Darcy to wanting to find a way to learn to use the type of writing implements that are stocked in the library. Still in some level of trouble, she didn’t dare ask for a calligraphy set from her parents, so the find in the art room and the teacher being enthusiastic about her interest had been fortuitous.

She’d hit a wall with the Allspeak book. After a month, she’d comprehended the entire thing, read every page multiple times, had a basic understanding of what she needed to do to learn the magic language. She could do the mental exercises it outlined, and she’d begrudgingly begun to do some basic physical exercise in her room as well as participating a little more willingly in PE, as it also told her that having a fit and healthy body would aid her in learning.

The problems were the other practice exercises. 

Much like this calligraphy set, the Allspeak book has pages upon pages of practice sentences that you’re supposed to write and speak to understand it fully, and perfect grammar and pronunciation. Without a way to transfer non-wearable items with her when she travels, and nowhere secure to store things in the Other Place, Darcy hadn’t wanted to utilize the pens, ink, and paper set out on all the tables around the library, lest they be found and people begin asking questions about why someone is in there learning Allspeak in the middle of the night. She’d been reduced to trying with only partial success to memorize the unfamiliar shapes and replicate them at home with ballpoint pen and notebook paper.

The revelation of the fireplace took care of that problem. She can practice at night and toss the pages she’d used in the fire on the way back to her closet. She’d even tested it with a blank sheet to make sure the paper wasn’t, like, fire-proof or something.

So, she’s left with the problem of actually learning to SPEAK Allspeak.

The main issues with that are A) she doesn’t want to potentially draw attention to herself by talking in the library and B) she doesn’t know what sounds any of the letters symbolize, or how they interact when strung together. The book obviously wasn’t written with someone teaching themselves in mind.

Which makes sense. It’s a book for children. The author probably, correctly, assumed that the reader would have a parent or tutor or sibling or something to help them who already spoke Allspeak.

“Well, you should still write him anyway!” her moms falsely cheerful voice breaks into Darcy’s thoughts again.

Trying not to sound too sullen, she responds only “I was only gonna ask for one thing, and I have enough in my piggy bank to buy it myself, so I’m just gonna get it next time we go to Fred Meyer.” She’d just pulled the hard rubber cork out of the bottom of her piggy bank 2 days previously to count all of the dollar bills she’d been stuffing in there from her allowance for the last year-ish. Between those and a couple years of $5 and $10 bills from birthday cards from family members, she has enough to buy a charm bracelet and a few charms, one of which is a fully functioning clock/watch/thing that needs to be wound once in awhile and everything. Darcy had spotted it recently at Fred Meyer when they’d gone birthday-present-shopping for Jake, since he turns 13 next week. She’d even tested to make sure it would go with her by putting on jewelry in various amounts for several nights. It appears that anything on her person will go, but putting things in pocket won’t work. She’d tried taking notes, pencils, even food, just for all of it to disappear on her way there and reappear when she gets home.

She takes a mean sort of satisfaction in the strained tone her mother’s voice takes on at this point. “Oh, what’s that?”

“Charm bracelet.” Darcy says, not elaborating.

“That’s nice, sweety.” her mom tries again. “What about books? You usually have a mile-long list of books for Santa to pick from.”

Darcy shrugs carelessly as she dips the nib of her pen into the blue ink she’s using today and blots it before continuing to write. “I have plenty to read from the library while I study ahead.”

That’s a definite sore spot with her parents. The source of all the tension. Because they can’t deny her point that she has a right to self-study if they won’t let her advance any further, especially since she can get all the materials from the library and it won’t cost them anything except about 45 minutes every couple weeks to drive her there to either exchange or extend her borrowing period on books, depending how much she’d gotten done.

The pause at this point is almost crackling with tension. Her mother perseveres, though, valiantly attempting to get some idea what Darcy wants for Christmas since she obviously isn’t getting the usual list this year. “Well, there has to be SOMETHING you’d like.” she insists.

“Nothing that I’ll get.” Darcy says quietly, but she knows her mom heard her. They’re the only ones home at the moment, and the only sound in the room as she writes and her mom scrubs the counter idly is the scritch of the pen across paper. Knowing what’s coming, Darcy starts rinsing the nib in the little Dixie cup of water off to one side and blowing on her paper to make the ink dry faster.

“Santa’s magic, sweety!” her mom pushes on. “How do you know you won’t get whatever it is?”

Packing up her writing stuff, Darcy tries not to sound bitter when she answers. “Unless he’s magic enough to make you and dad change your minds, then I’m definitely not getting it.”

It takes her several seconds to finish stacking it in the basket that had been scrounged out of a closet for her to hold her calligraphy stuff in, then Darcy dares a glance over into the kitchen at her mother as she heads for the stairs. Her mom has dropped the cheerful facade, finally, and is staring down at her own hand as she swipes a kitchen towel across the countertop, looking almost as sad as Darcy is resentful.

Part of Darcy feels bad. She’d manipulated that conversation to get precisely that response, and she doesn’t like making her mom sad at all, much less intentionally. But her mom just wouldn’t stop pushing, and Darcy doesn’t get why she insists on pretending everything is hunky-dory when it so clearly is not. Pretending doesn’t help. It doesn’t fix anything. And, while they’re expressing it differently, neither of her parents is willing to even discuss the problem so that maybe they could work on fixing it for real. No, here in the Lewis household, what the parents say goes and that’s final and the children aren’t meant to have opinions, even about their own lives. 

End of discussion.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

Darcy wakes up in her closet, confused.

Her closet in Asgard, she means. Not at home.

It’s very bright. It’s never bright when she gets here. As she moves to cautiously shift the stack of pillows, the brightness intensifies and she sees that she alone, as always. But she’s still hesitant to move from the safety of her hiding place.

She still doesn’t even know how or why she’s here. Right now, specifically. A minute ago, she was at school. It’s daytime. She never comes to Asgard during the day.

Asgard is the name of the Other Place, by the way. She’d just found out last week.

Wait, if she came here from school-

Looking down at herself, she almost chokes on air when she sees that she’s in her normal clothes. Without really knowing why, she’d just continued to wear her dress every time she came. As the weather had turned colder and colder, she’d put on her long johns under it, and another pair of sweatpants, and two pairs of thick socks, but only the socks would’ve been visible under the dress had someone stumbled upon her. Some small lap-blankets had appeared hanging over the backs of chairs scattered through the library, so she’d been able to stay decently warm, as there is categorically and understandably NOT a fireplace in the library to warm the space, and this place doesn’t seem to have any kind of radiators or central heating.

Now, in late January, she feels fairly proficient at reading and writing in Allspeak, but has yet to solve her dilemma on the vocal and auditory aspects. Nonetheless, she’d begun cutting back the time here that she devoted to that and exploring the other books surrounding her.

She’d figured starting right there in the kids section would be smartest. Learn what everyone else here probably already knows, and things will probably make more sense later. The only thing the fables and basic information and epic poems about major historical events won’t help with at least a little is the sort of knowledge that’s considered “common”. The names of the current royal family, the date in whatever calendar they use here, that sort of thing.

Forcing her oddly sluggish mind back to her current situation, Darcy thinks about one of the beginners primers for magic she’d been reading recently. It explained the basics of magic in incredibly simple terms - ones a child would understand - and gave a few little things to practice.

All she’d managed so far was to get the faintest little spark of light on her fingertip, but one of the other things that she had yet to try was a simple locking spell. It wouldn’t have much resistance (duh, its for children, they can’t just have petulant kids running around and locking doors for ages willy-nilly), but it would be enough to make her feel better that she would have enough warning to get back into hiding if someone tried to come in.

Well, now would seem like the time to try. She doesn’t even have to move from her spot, as she can see the door at the other end of the room through the gap in her pillows. Visual contact is recommended while learning.

Thinking she should see how long it takes if she can even manage it, Darcy brings her right wrist closer to her face and jiggles it until her dangling watch face is toward her, and notes the time as 1:35.

Yeah, she’s definitely supposed to be in school right now.

Bringing her attention back to the door, she stares at it and tries to remember what the book said. To feel her magic and focus it with her intent, then speak the words for lock and the item she wants to lock in Allspeak.

She can’t do the last part, but she has a hypothesis that if she thinks them hard enough, it’ll work. It takes more focus - that’s why it’s taken her over a week just to get a little speck of light on her finger. But she’s sure she can do it. She’ll just have to practice harder than anything she’s ever practiced before. Which isn’t a lot of things, but you get the point.

She’s figured out that the rushing feeling when she will herself here is her magic, so she tries to relax and pull that feeling up. 

Easier said than done. She’s still keyed-up and anxious about why and how she’s here in the middle of the day. She just KNOWS that there’s a probably not-good reason for this surprise trip. And if there isn’t a very darn good reason for it, she’s going to be in SO MUCH trouble when she gets home.

Eventually, though, she does manage to sink into the breathing pattern from the exercises to be more aware of her magic, and she can almost - but not quite - feel the flowing energy deep inside of her tummy. 

Keeping that feeling on one side of her mind, she stares at the blurry door at the other end of the closet and focuses on her need to have it stay shut. When she has a steady chant of that intention going, she carefully shifts it to the side of her brain to merge with the little trickle of magic moving through her. Next, she thinks about the letters she needs in Allspeak and pictures them appearing on the door, like she’s writing or painting them there. She has to try this part 4 times before it looks right.

Holding her breath and not blinking, she pushes the trickle of energy and intent out, through the words and into the door.

She keeps pushing until the trickle gets too thin and snaps, making her suck in a big breath.

There’s no way of knowing if it works until someone tries to open the door, and the more people try to open it, the weaker the spell will be until it wears off. Like she said, it’s not a very strong spell. It’s a practice one for kids.

So, she isn’t going to go try the door in case it did work and would break for her trying to open it.

Carefully, she crawls out of her spot in the corner of the bottom shelf and uses the pillows to get comfy sitting against the wall. Darcy’s TIRED. She thinks she might’ve pushed too much of her energy into that spell attempt. Wait.

Flicking her wrist up to her face again reveals the time now to be 4:56.

Dang, Gina. That one little attempt took her 3 and a half hours.

Okay, back on track. Now she can try to figure out what the heck is going on.

What does she remember about today? She’d come home from Asgard a half-hour before she needed to get up for school, like normal, then done the little situps-and-pushup routine she’d reluctantly established when she started learning Allspeak. Then she’d trudged into the bathroom, tied her hair up and jumped into the shower to rinse off and washed her face while she was at it. Brush teeth, brush hair, go out for breakfast. A totally normal morning.

She’d gone to school, taking all of her advanced books with her because she’s almost done with the 6th-grade Integrated Science one (her last 6th-grade subject) and she wanted to make a dent in 7th-grade English. Her teacher has long-since accepted that she’s bored as heck in class and moved her to the back corner desk right next to her own, allowing her to work ahead on her own and ignore what’s going on in the classroom as long as all of her 5th-grade work was done and handed in on time. Darcy suspects that Mrs. Jameson had something to do with it as well.

She’d finished the last 2 chapters in the Bio book by first recess, and she’d stayed inside for that recess. That’s not unusual this time of year; Colorado in January is pretty dang cold, so kids elect to spend recess inside all the time. Lunch had been eaten at the table in the corner right next to the lady who checks the hot-lunch kids in to go through the line has her computer set up.

Then....

Oh.

Mrs. Andrews had to go into the office for something during second recess, so everyone had been shooed out of the classroom to somewhere they’d be monitored by an adult for the 20 minute break. The moment Darcy had stepped foot out into the cold, she’d realized she needed the bathroom, and if she asked to go right after recess ended then she’d get in trouble for not going DURING recess.

She’d been expecting it for months, but she’d still frozen in a moment of shock and dread when she’d come out of the stall to find James Matthews and his 3 goons waiting for her. He’d made some unoriginal comment that she’s sure he thought was funny about her hiding behind the teachers, then, when she rolled her eyes and sarcastically told him how clever he is, he’d gotten mad.

That’s where things get really fuzzy. She vaguely recalls him shoving her, and her falling towards the sinks, then his face changing to a scared look, and at least one person screaming, then.... Nothing.

Had she brought herself here unintentionally to get out of danger? Possible, she thinks. It’s not like she’d originally come here intentionally. It had been an accident.

She knows she should go back, but she also is pretty sure she’d used, like, all her magic with that locking spell, so she doesn’t know if she even COULD. Speaking of, she is, like, seriously tired. More than she thought.

With another glance at the hopefully-locked door, she carefully selects a couple pillows from other shelves and shoves them back into her corner before crawling in and pulling her protective stack on them in front of her. She’d picked narrower ones that she’s sure are either meant to be decorative or for couches or something so they wouldn’t take up much room, she’s a little jammed against the shelf above her, but she has cushions to lay on to rest. After one final check to make sure she won’t be seen without someone really looking for her, Darcy drifts off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

When Darcy next opens her eyes, she’s still on Asgard. Not that she’d expected to be home, given how low her magic had been when she went to sleep.

She doesn’t really remember dreaming, so much as vaguely knowing that someone was near her and crying, but who that was? Beats her. She’s still alone in the closet, and she suspects she had been so for however long she had been asleep, since she’s pretty sure she would’ve woken up if anyone had come in. So, either the spell worked, or this closet isn’t one that people come into very much.

Trying to check the time, she realizes it’s dark out now. Too dark to read her watch.

So, probably time or nearly time for it to be safe to head to the library. She’ll have to be extra careful, since she’s in her normal clothes this time. Even if she doesn’t know why she knows that.

As her hand touches the door handle, it feels weird.... Almost like she’s touching her own arm, except it’s the metal handle.

Is that what touching your own magic feels like? Cool.

With a twist of the handle, she feels the magic resist for a moment before fading away and allowing her through. Darcy grins. It worked! On her first try!

Reminding herself that she needs to be extra careful, she cracks the door to peek out, finding the usual deserted hallway and cursing herself for not bothering to wear her glasses at school anymore because she had no reason to look up at the board. Everything’s still blurry. She’s about to push the door open and go out when she has a thought and looks down at her feet. She’s in her insulated winter boots, which are heavy and definitely make noise when she walks. Retreating again, she unties the laces and pulls them off, hiding them quickly in her corner before exiting the closet. At least she hadn’t been in her snowsuit or something - talk about noisy for no reason. Her jeans aren’t as quiet as her dress with sweatpants under it, but the noise is hardly anything, and her sock-feet are silent on the cold stone floor.

Alright. Time to start studying with all her might to try and figure out what the heck is up with her ability to come here and all this magic stuff.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

The sound of the closet door opening and a couple maids talking as they come in to get some things only half-wakes Darcy at this point. She’s been stuck in Asgard for a week now, and she’s sort of figured out a routine.

After the second night she’d been here, she had come back and gone to sleep assuming she’d go home like normal, but she’d woken a few hours later to the closet door opening and the chattering of female voices in a language she doesn’t understand. Her heart felt like it was stopping, but the women had barely been in there for a minute before they left again, and Darcy had risked a quick look out to see that they’d simply taken some of the towels and sheets from the shelves closest to the door.

This had happened once more a little later in the morning hours, but, otherwise, she’d been left in peace to nap and be bored for the whole of the afternoon and evening.

It was during that time that she realized that she wasn’t hungry, or thirsty, and hadn’t felt the need to find a toilet for more than 24 hours. This revelation gave her something to ponder for those hours, as she is obviously physically here, which means that her body should need food and water and to be rid of waste. Obviously she’s sleeping, but that’s, like, the only biological function she seems to need.

She’d attempted to find more books that might explain how she travels here, but, once she’d actually found one titled very obviously “Magical Means of Travel”, it had been more or less incomprehensible to her. Like, she understands the words, obviously, because the Allspeak takes care of that, but she just hasn’t learned even a tiny fraction of the theory she needs to actually get what the book is talking about. That book had been slotted back into the shelf she’d found it on and she’d trudged unhappily back to the kids section and the beginner theory books.

It’ll have to be done the long way, then. No jumping ahead of herself just to get an answer and working backwards to fill in the gaps.

Her second full day, she’d at least thought to bring a couple books back with her to occupy her while she’s stuck in the closet. It had followed the same pattern as the day before, with a couple people coming in very briefly to grab replacement sheets and towels, but nobody after about 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

After the 3rd day following the exact same pattern, she’d felt comfortable starting to at least come out of her hiding place in the afternoon, and her own days had fallen into a pattern.

She comes back to her closet at 6 in the morning, with a few books for later in the day, and crawls into her corner to sleep. She usually gets about 4 or 5 solid hours before any maids start ducking in, and she has gotten so used to the short visits that she only partially wakes up. Around 2, she knows she’s almost definitely okay to come out, at which point she does her exercises - and doesn’t sweat, she notes idly one day - then sits down to read, and practice the tiny bits of magic until the hallway quiets down, usually sometime around 11. At this point, she heads for the library for the night.

Since she doesn’t know any of the sounds for Allspeak, she never understands what the maids are talking about, but she has peeked through the gaps in her pillows and seen that her hunch had been correct; people here dress VERY differently than what she’s used to. Every maid she’s seen has been in a floor-length dress with long sleeves. Other details vary, but those are the constants. She hasn’t seen what the men wear, but she’s a girl, so it’s a little irrelevant at this point. It means she can definitely not be seen in the jeans-and-sweater combo that she’s been in for a week now.

Thankfully, since she doesn’t seem to be sweating or anything, they haven’t begun smelling or whatever, but she is sort of sick of them.

Now, on day 7 of her accidental stay here, Darcy sleepily maneuvers to look at her watch and finds it to be midday. Enough time to snooze for another hour or two before she should get up and start on the reading she’d brought back for the day.

She’s just drifting back off when the door opens again, shutting a split second later and her eyes snap back open as she holds her breath. 

That’s unusual. The maids leave it open for the moments they’re in here retrieving things.

The person she sees through her tiny gap is definitely NOT a maid. It’s a man. A very tall man, who’s holding his hand to the door with his back to her. As she watches, she almost thinks it’s a trick of the light and her bad vision when she sees a ripple of transparent green wash out from his hand and over the doorway.

Then, it clicks in her still-partly-asleep brain and she realizes she’d just seen magic. 

For the first time.

Okay, for the first time by someone else. Someone who knows what they’re doing.

Carefully, she starts breathing again, keeping her mouth open and going slowly so it’s silent, knowing if she holds it much longer that she’ll end up being too noisy when her body inevitably begins forcing her to.

As she watches and calms her racing heart, the man turns and slouches to lean against the door that she assumes is locked much more powerfully than she could manage. He has a nice face, she decides quickly, despite the details being blurry. He looks like a Disney prince, kinda. And the massive grin on his face only enhances that. His hair is black, and she thinks he probably had it slicked back, but it’s going curly at the ends, and some of it falls over his forehead. Even without her glasses, she can see his eyes are the brightest green she’s ever seen anyone’s eyes before. They’re the exact same color as the ripples of magic she’d seen a second before.

Even slouched against the door, he looks SO TALL. The door has always looked a bit absurdly tall to her, at least a foot taller than she’s used to doors being, but it looks like a perfectly normal size with him standing in front of it.

His breathing is a bit quick, like he’d run here, but he’s silent, eyes unfocussed as he clearly listens for something.

“LOKI!” a voice booms through the door, making Darcy have to stifle a jump and a squeak. The man’s shoulders start shaking slightly in silent laughter so as not to give away his position. “You’ve not been back from Vanaheim for a full turn and already you’re causing trouble! Come out and return Fandral to his correct visage!”

“Yes, dearest little Prince Loki!” another, slightly higher voice joins in the booming. “Needn’t hide yourself away! Come face your own mischief!”

She watches the man’s grin widen even further, but he stays utterly silent.

There’s an expectant pause, then the voices in the hallway quiet to a more conversational - but still loud - level.

“Come, he’s probably magically taken himself to a safer area of the palace.” the first voice states.

“Safer?” the other voice scoffs “Where in the palace does he presume would be safe from retribution for making me look like Baldr’s backside?”

“Mother’s rooms.” the first voice states plainly. “I doubt he’s had time for an audience with her since arriving home. He will likely be in chambers with her until the evening meal and perhaps beyond. His visit to Vanaheim was at her behest.” With this, loud footsteps hurry away and the man relaxes even more in his slumped position.

She expects him to unlock the door and leave now that whoever is chasing him has retreated, but he’s still for a long moments, eyes roving around the closet.

The grin lessens gradually down to a neutral expression as his eyes seem to lock onto the end shelves under the window, as though he’s searching for something. Darcy, immediately worried she’s been discovered, keeps breathing slowly through her mouth and locks every muscle in her body so there isn’t so much as a twitch as he stalks slowly towards her.

His eyes quickly disappear from sight, and she’s left with a view of strange-but-sturdy-and-expensive-looking black leather boots that go up to nearly his knees, and a few inches of equally black but much softer-looking leather above that, covering his legs and tucked into the boots.

He makes a slow spin a few steps in front of her, then mutters, “Strange. Why would a child frequent a storage cupboard to practice magic?”

Oh no.

Can he, like, sense her magic?!

Oh fiddlesticks, she’s gonna get caught.

Darcy clamps down on her panic, hoping it’s only her practice from yesterday that he’s picking up on and not her current presence. And he obviously recognizes the beginner-level spells she’s been working on. Will SHE be able to sense magic some day? Well enough to identify individual spells?

Abruptly, he disappears, but Darcy doesn’t dare feel that she’s safe. One of the books she read recently mentioned that turning oneself invisible is a possibility. 

Less than a minute later, he reappears, facing her section of shelves and stepping forward. There’s some rustling as he does something on a higher shelf, then he turns and walks back to the door. With a single glance backward, he touches the door and another ripple of green washes over it, then he’s slipping out and shutting it behind himself.

Relaxing slowly, Darcy begins breathing a little easier and processing all that had just occurred, but still doesn’t move from her spot.

They’d called the man Loki. Prince Loki, even.

While she doesn’t recognize the name from anything she’s read here yet, she DOES remember it from the section on mythology near the end of the 6th-grade English book she’d finished months before. Loki was one of the Norse gods. The Trickster god. And it would seem he ducked in here after playing some sort of prank...

But... no way. 

He’s a myth. Maybe his parents, obviously the king and queen of wherever, exactly, Asgard is, just have a thing for Norse mythology.

What else?

She finally knows how men dress. Or at least, one man. She should probably see more before deciding that even a majority of men here wear leather pants and knee-high boots and long, slightly loose shirts that look a bit like drawings she’s seen of tunics in storybooks and some history books. 

His magic! It was green! Hers is a soft white color, but one of the theory books said that most people’s starts out that way and it would take on a color corresponding to her personality and how she uses it as she becomes more adept.

And he can sense her magic. But she’s already kinda been over that.

And she understood what they were saying! They must’ve been using Allspeak. But her brain translated it as English. She wonders what she would’ve heard if she knew what Allspeak sounds like.

Once Darcy has replayed the frantic few minutes at least 10 times in her head, storing things away into the organizational system she’s been working on setting up, she admits that there’s only one other question about the odd encounter. What he’d done on the shelf a few up from hers. And there’s only one way for her to find out.

Well, she has to come out eventually, anyway.

Actually, she doesn’t. That whole somehow not needing food or water or to pee thing. But she’ll go nuts fairly quickly with nothing to do but be stuck hiding under a shelf forever.

Deciding against spending hours and all of her magic with her piddly little locking spell, and slowly crawling out, Darcy carefully looks up to see what’s different, and finds...

A book.

On the 3rd shelf up, between 2 stacks of embroidered pillows, there’s a book. Right at eye level for a child. For Darcy.

With another quick glance at the unsecured door, she reaches up to snatch the book to her, then hurries back into her spot. It’s a bright enough day for her to get just enough light filtering through the gaps in the pillows to read, and she’s getting better at conjuring tiny lights to help once it begins getting dark. She’d discovered through some experimentation that they work particularly well for reading if she sticks a couple to her chin.

There’s no title or any other writing on the outside of the book, so she cracks it open, wondering what the heck the man - Prince Loki? - would’ve left her a book about without even knowing who she is.

She quickly wants to smack her forehead when she finds out after 2 pages, because it’s the stupidly obvious thing.

Magic.

He’d done magic seemingly as easily as breathing. He’d sensed her childish magic that she practices here. So he’d left her a beginner’s book. From the handwritten note opposite the title page, someone had given it to HIM at some point, claiming that some people learn this method with more ease than the common one, whatever that is.

Had he sensed something in her magic that made him think she might be struggling with the method she’s learning from the other books?

She doesn’t feel like she’s particularly struggling. Her progress feels slow, but she’s really still pretty new to all this, and she doesn’t have any metrics to compare her progress against. Maybe she IS struggling and just has no way of knowing.

The book does off a very different insight into the basis of learning magic. It reads more like a science book smashed together with a math book and a touch of new-age-yogi-meditation stuff to her than the predominantly ‘instruction manual’ type of books she’s been using. It explains how magic works in terms like energy transference and force and resistance. 

Like physics, basically.

It explains magic like physics.

Darcy grins as she realizes this about a quarter of the way through the book. She likes physics. She hasn’t started studying it properly yet because the school district doesn’t offer it until high school, but the absolute basics have been covered in her integrated science texts. Like gravity. Okay, basically just gravity.

But she still thinks it’s super cool.

She only goes to the library that night to take a stack of paper, a pen, and a bottle of ink so she can take notes.

Hey, as long as she’s stuck here, she may as well keep notes for as long as she is. Her corner is safe enough, no-one ever looks there. Her shoes have yet to be found.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

Magic is SO MUCH EASIER when she doesn’t think of it in terms of steps to do spells.

Darcy had no clue how hard the apparently “common” way is until the true fundamentals were explained to her as well as how to utilize them to achieve different results.

She’d spent three days taking extensive notes on the book that... Loki... left her. She wrote down everything that seemed remotely important in it. Every day, at some point, he would appear for a moment. It was never the same time twice, though it was always sometime in the afternoon or evening, but before sundown. He never stayed long, or said anything. Or came in through the door. He would just appear, the motion of him arriving catching in the corner of her eye and making her immediately freeze. The visit never lasted long, maybe 2 minutes, and consisted of him standing and examining the space before simply disappearing again.

It had been a long and slightly cramped 3 days, during which she hardly left her hiding place in case he popped in again at random.

When Darcy determined that she’d gleaned everything she could from the book, she’d written a very short note in Allspeak thanking him, and stuck the small slip of paper in the middle like a bookmark before replacing it on the shelf exactly where he’d left it in the first place.

Loki had popped in around 3 the next day for his usual checkup and seemed a little shocked to see the book, moving to the shelf to pick it up and pulling out the note immediately.

She’d been unable to see anything but his shins at that point, but she knows he had pulled paper and a pen from somewhere, because she’d heard of scritch of him writing for a minute, and there was a return note in place of the book when she came out after the hall had fallen quiet. There’d been a tiny spark as she picked up the paper, and she’d... not tasted, or smelled, but something like that... spearmint. Green ink in flowing lines much more elegant than she thinks she’ll ever be able to manage had spelled out recommendations of a few books that could be found in the library, and a promise to drop a few others off here the following evening from his personal collection.

Darcy’s tender, 7-and-a-half-year-old heart had fluttered at the thought that a MAGIC PRINCE is giving her book recommendations and offering to loan her more from his PERSONAL COLLECTION to help her LEARN MAGIC. Talk about a dream scenario for a little girl raised on Disney.

But now.... She’s been here for more than a month.

She’s getting pretty good at magic, if she says so herself. With a lot of help from the prince’s recommendations. 

And her magic is purple!

Darcy’s incredibly pleased with this development. Purple is her absolute favorite color.

She’s happy... but lonely. She doesn’t actually remember the last time she even said anything out loud, much less to another person. Her whole existence is centered around learning magic and not getting caught. Even when she was miserable at home and not talking to her dad, she at least still talked to her teacher and the librarian and Jake. Here, the closest thing she has to social interaction is reading Loki’s notes in the margins of his books and the occasional list of what she should read from the library.

The past few days, she’s been reading about illusions, and she’s just managed to successfully cast one on her clothing.

As a small reward to herself, she’s decided to explore a little tonight. She’s never ventured beyond the public spaces between her closet and the library before, and she’s getting restless and bored and very curious to see more of this strange place she’s landed herself in.

It’s weird to still feel her normal clothes, but look down and see a version of the dresses she sees the maids in every day. Actually, it’s not very different from her pretty dress at home. Dark purple, long sleeves, to her ankles. The only real differences are the shape of the sleeves and the lack of ribbon around her waist. Instead of fitting close around her wrist, the sleeves get looser starting at her elbows, and she’d somewhat sentimentally replaced the green ribbon with green embroidery around all the hems. Nothing fancy, just little swirly patterns.

Her first leg of the adventure to new territory takes her only down the hall past the library. It’s not very interesting. There’s a crossroads where it meets another, wider hallway that looks a lot longer, then after that it’s pretty much just more paintings and rooms and a sitting area/balcony just like “her” section.

Backtracking to the intersection, Darcy hides a little behind a corner, peeking each direction and trying to decide which way she should go. After a couple minutes of repeated eeny-meany-miney-moes, the decision is made for her. Down the left side, she sees what must be a guard of some kind exit a room and take up a post outside of it. Not seeing anything like that to the right, she slips around the corner and stays close to the wall moving away from the guard, moving slowly in the hopes she won’t catch his attention.

As she nears another intersection, she hears a door open and light spills out of a room on the other side of it, so she ducks into the hallway she’d been about to cross and pass.

Suddenly unsure if she wants to get much further from familiar territory, she stops, then looks around and tries to hide herself in the corner where a tapestry is right at the edge of the hall. It proves easier than she expects; there’s some apparently hidden passageway - or maybe just discreet servants’ stairs or something - behind the fabric.

Her curiosity takes over again, battling her sense, and Darcy decides to just go up to the next landing on the spiral stairs the passage reveals, more of the lights like the halls and library every sixth or seventh step to light the way. She just wants a peek at the next floor up. Then she’ll go back down and hope she can get back to her closet undiscovered.

At said next landing, she’s steeling herself to push out the tapestry that covers that entrance when the small sound of an opening door and voices stop her.

“What on earth do you need all these for, darling?” a woman’s voice asks, and Darcy drops her mouth open and makes sure to keep breathing despite wanting to totally freeze. “You mastered everything in these books when you were a child.”

There’s a hesitation before the other person replies, then a soft-spoken answer comes. “I stumbled across someone who has been teaching themselves magic. I suspect one of the servant’s children or perhaps one of the younger servants themselves; they’ve been practicing in a storage closet in one of the lesser-used guest wings.” She’d only ever heard him speak the one time, but she’d still recognize Loki’s voice anywhere. “There’d been regular use of it for at least a few months, but they were still working on the very first practice spells... I thought perhaps they had the same problem I did. I’ve been leaving some of my old books. It seems to be helping. In a matter of weeks, the magic residue has become more complex; they’ve nearly developed a signature.”

“Oh, my,” the female says, though not in alarm. “Why on earth don’t they simply go to the tutoring in the library? Amelie would never turn away someone eager to learn the arts. Or one of the collegiums; even if they can’t afford an apprenticeship, they could still attend the public classes.”

“I know not, mother,” Loki replies. “I’ve not truly seen them to ask, only sensed their magic and left books.”

She hears a sigh from the woman, then, “Well, I’m proud of you for going out of your way to help them, in any case. Perhaps leave a note with a question they might reply to? Open a conversation of sorts?”

“I intended to do so once some trust was built by the lending of books.” he replies, sounding somehow both confident and sheepish at the same time. “Now that they’re developing a signature, I’ve commissioned a batch of ink in their color, as well as a journal, and found a pen set that I felt would suit. They should be ready by week’s end; my plan was to leave them with a letter and this newest set of books.”

“Oh, my sweet boy,” the woman says in that proud-mom voice. “It appears you have the situation well in hand, but do please inform me if I can be of any other help than digging up your old schoolbooks.”

“Of course, mother. Thank you again,” he says, then there’s the quiet sounds of footsteps and rustling fabric in either direction as the two seem to part and head their separate ways.

Deciding she’s had plenty of adventure for one night, Darcy gives up her idea of peeking out into this hall and turns to head back down to the one below. She has to force herself to pay full attention to not getting caught instead of turning the overheard conversation in her mind. Plenty of time for that when she’s safe.


	5. Chapter 5

Darcy thoughtfully strokes her fingers over the soft leather stretched over the cover of her journal.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since she’d overheard the conversation between Loki and his mother, and the items he’d listed had been left a few hours ago, along with a second journal, which currently sits in her lap while the purple one is at her side. The second one is covered by a cream-colored fabric with lines of black stitching. The first couple pages of it are covered in Loki’s perfectly-elegant handwriting and green ink, explaining the gifts and that he thought a shared journal would be easiest for them to communicate rather than notes on loose bits of paper. Telling her that he understands THAT she wishes to keep her identity hidden, if not necessarily WHY, and that he is happy to keep helping her learn in this manner, and that if she ever has need of anything, all she has to do is ask and he’ll do whatever he can to provide it.

In much more elegant prose, of course, but that’s the basic idea of the message.

Looking around her closet, she debates the offer. Of course she’s going to take him up on continuing to learn magic, but, the other.... Technically, she doesn’t need anything. She has a safe and comfortable-enough place to sleep, clothes, and she doesn’t need food, water, or a bathroom. Going on 3 months here, she has yet to become hungry, or thirsty, or need to use a toilet. Her hair hasn’t gotten greasy from not bathing, she doesn’t stink as far as she can tell, and, since that doesn’t happen, her clothes haven’t started smelling, even if they’re a bit dusty.

In short, all of her basic needs are being met, and she has something to do to occupy her time, though she does occasionally long to be among people and go out in the sun. He’s already being very kind to help her, and generous. She doesn’t want to take advantage of that.

Darcy almost moves to pick up the pen to write a reply straight away before thinking better of it and reaching back into her corner for the stack of paper there. She discovered quickly that there’s a learning curve switching between pens as you get used to the slightly different shape and rigidity of the nibs. Better to practice a little with the new ones he’d provided before trying to write anything that someone else is meant to read.

After nearly an hour of copying pages of her notes, she’s not leaving splotches all over the page and has figured out the angles of this pen enough to be confident that she can at least write something legibly in reply.

Unable to think of much TO reply with, she just thanks him for his generosity then asks a few questions she has about illusions because the one she’s been using for her clothes on her trips to the library are inconsistent and she doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong. It’s hard to make them totally opaque and have them stay that way for more than a few minutes.

Much as she wants to answer his implied questions about her, to have some kind of personal connection, she can’t risk it. He’s a prince, and she’s.... A little girl. Stranded on what she increasingly suspects to be a planet that is not Earth. She has no clue how she got here, much less if she’s even allowed. If he found out, wouldn’t he be, like, duty-bound to kick her out or something? Would she go to jail, or whatever the equivalent here is? For trespassing?

No. Best to avoid that as long as possible.

Her reply note takes up hardly a third of a page, and she stands only to set the book back on what is now their normal shelf for leaving things for one another. Once she’s seated again on her stack of pillows, Darcy starts transcribing her pages of notes into her journal, conjuring lights to stick to her chin as it gets darker and darker outside.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

Loki’s stomach feels heavy as he threads his magic over the bottom edge of the back cover of their shared journal before popping into the cupboard and leaving it on the usual shelf, sticking the magic to the wood as he sets it down.

It’s not a complex spell. All it will do is alert him when the bond of it is broken by the book being taken from the shelf. 

This is the fifth instance, consecutively, that he’s done this, and the picture he’s forming from the results is one that pains him. The first night - 10 previous to the current day - he’d thought it a simple coincidence of timing when the bond had broken in less than half a turn of the glass from the time he’d left it. That his young pupil just happened to arrive and see it so shortly after he’d adjourned back to his chambers. Giving it a day for them to read, absorb the new information, and reply, he’d been unsurprised to find it again waiting for him the following day.

The following instances, however, never varied. No matter what time of day he set the book down with a thin bond of magic to alert him, it was always picked up exactly the same number of heartbeats after he retreated from the cupboard. There’s no way his pupil could possibly know when he would pop in to leave it, and he rarely walks there and enters by the door. Near always, he magically transports himself directly there from his chambers.

Which means they couldn’t be out in the hall and see him come or go to know to go get it.

But he has to confirm. So, today, he doesn’t go directly back to his chambers. Today, he makes himself invisible and goes only to the hall just on the other side of the door.

Settling himself in the corner opposite the door, he watches and counts, a bit anxiously.

He’s nearly convinced that today would break the pattern when the bond breaks and his suspicion is confirmed. Breathing out a silent sigh, he doesn’t move as he contemplates this outcome.

None had even walked down this hall in the time between him leaving the journal to come out here and them picking it up. The door had not opened, and he knows they are not advanced enough to have transported themselves in magically. His only possible remaining explanation is that they had, somehow, been in the cupboard the same time he was.

There had been no active magic in the room other than his own.

That means they are physically hiding themselves.

There’s nothing in the tiny room but shelves, and naught to hide behind beyond that which the shelves contain. The area he’s always sensed their magic most is at the far end, where the shelves are stacked with cushions. It would be easy enough to get in and out from behind them without leaving any sign of a disturbance.

If they’re small enough to wedge themselves under a shelf that doesn’t even come up to his knee, and fit behind the stacks of cushions without them being displaced.

Drawing on his patience, Loki continues to wait, pulling his magic in tight to him so they definitely won’t sense him. He’d come today intentionally rather late, just as the palace is settling for the evening, to ensure that there would be no mistake about it. After nearly a full turn of the glass, his diligence pays him.

He’s not happy at all with the reward, though.

The door in front of him opens slightly, as though they are checking the hall is free of people, then opens only a tiny fraction further to allow the occupant to slip out and silently push the door closed.

She. His pupil is female, or at least appears to be. 

And she is so painfully small. Much smaller than he expected. Most Aesir don’t begin exhibiting signs of active magic until shortly before they enter their adolescence.

But she is hardly more than a babe. When he was that small - well, he isn’t the best example, but when his peers were that small, they were still mastering writing and sums and reading the childrens’ versions of history books after a morning of practicing the most basic drills with wooden practice swords out in the courtyard. Most of them hadn’t even begun learning the Allspeak yet.

Which means they are even more akin than he first imagined when he encountered, in a way, a child that was clearly struggling with the conventional forms of magic.

The tiny figure hurries off down the hall with hardly a rustle of fabric, and he can see the slight gaps in the illusion of the gown covering her. So, that’s why she’s been asking about illusions so much. She hasn’t proper clothing to be seen around the palace, if she were to be caught in the library at night.

He’d given her a lengthy list of books to look at, so Loki is secure in the knowledge she’ll be away for some time, and he steps forward to go back into the cupboard himself. It doesn’t take him long at all to find her hiding place.

Behind stacks of bed cushions, just below where the journal is exchanged near-daily, are some narrower cushions (presumably for laying on), most of the pens and ink he’d gifted her, a few books including the journal, and... shoes? They’re shaped like a sort of boot, but not like any he’s ever seen before. The material is odd, unfamiliar. 

Tucking that aside for later, he gazes into the miniscule space sadly for a long moment before replacing the stack of cushions, careful to leave no sign they’d been disturbed.

Transporting himself back to his outer chambers, he nearly collapses in his favorite chair between the hearth and the balcony doors. Rubbing his face in sorrow, he gives himself a moment to wallow whilst he takes stock of the situation. 

A small child is living in a storage cupboard in a lesser-used wing of the castle. He’d initially suspected her to be a servant’s child, but if that were the case, she would not be living in a cupboard. She appears to have naught to her name but whatever clothes she wears presently and the stationary items he’d given her. Presumably, she knows where the common bathing chambers and such are, and when and where to acquire food and drink without anyone taking notice. She’s showing active magic significantly earlier than most children. Somehow, she knows the Allspeak despite her apparent homelessness. And has surprisingly good penmanship for that as well.

Homelessness at all is an extreme rarity on Asgard; they are too long-lived and generally prosperous as a people to have it be a common issue. Almost universally, if a person falls on hard times, their neighbors will help them without question, and if the situation were dire enough, there is always work to be found at the palace, or in the farmlands on the outskirts of the city, or, all else failing, it is a very simple thing to pick up and move to a different province to start afresh.

So, for anyone to be homeless at all is startling. For that person to be a child who should not even be away from their mother for any length of time yet.... It’s unthinkable.

He can’t even imagine what could possibly have led her to the palace at all, much less to seek shelter and hide herself away so thoroughly. Magic is generally a not-particularly-well-regarded thing on Asgard, but it’s considered perfectly acceptable for girls and women in particular to practice. There is, of course, a POSSIBILITY that her parents had been unable to handle such strong magic manifesting so early, but it’s a well-known fact that the masters of the collegiums prize such rare children and would happily take them for an apprentice. Simply turning her out would be heartless to say the least when she could have had a perfectly fine life of academia.

The only other possibility he can dream up is that she was orphaned, but even then, other family or the community around her should have taken her in and cared for her.

It just doesn’t make any sense. Not helped by the fact that she has yet to answer a single question he’s asked which is more personal than how she’s coming along in a bit of practice. Obviously she thinks something bad will happen if her situation were discovered, else she wouldn’t be so cautious. 

Loki suspects he has much trust to gain before he will receive any answers from her. Instead, he sets his mind to how he can begin rectifying the situation in a way that won’t scare her off.

He can’t simply leave her a key to rooms fully stocked with everything she needs. As far as she’s aware, he has no idea she’s female, much less her size to guess at clothing and such. Hed told her when this first began near two seasons ago that he would respect her wish for privacy, and he doesn’t want to betray that he had set up and spied on her to ascertain her situation.

Which leaves his choice betwixt lying to her and making up an excuse (likely that it would be most convenient for him if she were in rooms closer to his chambers or some such) or finding another way to make it absolutely necessary that he see to her care WITHOUT lying to her.

For all that he’s known for being an accomplished liesmith, he truly prefers not to if it isn’t necessary. At least about anything that matters. So, finding a way it is.

He can’t simply adopt her. Besides the scandal it would cause, he has no plausible explanation for how he knew she was in need of it. And normally he would be all for causing scandal, but this is not a matter for being mischievous. No, that course is inadvisable at best.

It would be beyond inappropriate to appoint her as one of the servants assigned to him personally to ensure she had quarters in the palace. He wouldn’t want her all the way in the opposite corner of the palace in the servants’ quarters anyhow, so he would have to make her his full-time chambermaid to have her closer, but to have a CHILD as his chambermaid is out of the question entirely.

The only other option he can think of (excluding the obviously impossible task of finding out who her family is and returning her to them) is what she should have been given over to in the first place. An apprenticeship.

Except, after a half-year of teaching her, he knows there are only a few masters in all of Asgard that would be equipped to truly nurture her talents. He knows, because her progress is uncannily similar to his as a child, and he’d technically had to apprentice to his mother to become a master in his own right because there is only one other in the city that knows the Vanahamian and Alfhamian techniques that he is so much better suited to than the Asgardian ones. And he wouldn’t trust her care to anyone outside the palace itself by this point. Which leaves his options for masters for her down to his mother or himself.

Frigga would be the logical choice. She taught him, after all. Frigga would also be the more appropriate choice, the child being female. And Frigga would welcome the task; she’s always very quietly longed for a daughter. She’s never said, but Loki can tell in how she looks at the young girls playing in the gardens and how her face lights up weaving delicate hair ribbons or embroidering a tiny gown for the daughters of her ladies in waiting. He’s no doubt she adores both he and Thor, but her heart longs for a little girl to dress up and braid her hair prettily and teach her to be a lady.

For all that, though.... Loki wants to do it. To take this small girl that’s so painfully like him as an apprentice and ensure she’s properly appointed for the station that would grant her and teach her about the things he’s mocked for knowing simply because he’s a man. To prepare her for the realities of being incredibly gifted with a foreign style of magic in a realm that does not necessarily welcome such gifts. To ensure she can defend herself physically as well as magically.

He wants to take this girl who has nothing to a degree he can’t even truly comprehend and give her everything.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

_... I understand this is a large commitment which you should consider with great care, and discuss with your family. The book I have provided outlines the responsibilities and expectations a formal apprenticeship would entail for each of us. Please read it and ask any questions you may have. There would, of course, be a number of things that will not be discussed in it, as my status would require it to be a, shall we say, less than traditional apprenticeship. These, in summary, would be some additional expectations of you as you will be, in essence, representing me, and I would, of course, provide for everything you will need to fulfill those responsibilities. This would include appropriate chambers, clothing, any other physical necessities, and a much broader education than simply me teaching you magic..._

The writing goes on in Loki’s hand, but Darcy looks away, feeling pensive. She already knows it by heart, she just has their book open on her lap mostly to have something to look at while she thinks.

He’d left their book and the other one referenced three nights previously. She’s lost count of the number of times she’s read Loki’s offer in that time, and she’s been through the entire apprenticeship book about three times. Also read in this time had been parts of several library books for her to confirm what she’s slowly been realizing over the past 8ish months she’s been here: the people of Asgard, the Aesir, are not the same as her.

Like, she’d kind of already known that, but they’re REALLY not like her. 5,000 years is considered a somewhat SHORT life for them. She can’t remember if she ever knew the official average lifespan of a human, but she definitely remembers that living to be 100 is a pretty big deal.

An apprenticeship here, on average, lasts around 400 years. Give or take 100 depending on the people and situation.

Her saying yes would mean she either had to tell him she wouldn’t be alive for even a quarter of her commitment to it, or just rapidly aging before his eyes. And she doesn’t think he’s likely to take either very well. But if she says no, he might track her down to ask why and find out about her anyway. She has nowhere else to go other than this closet or another one basically just like it somewhere else in the palace. It would be impossible to hide from him for very long, if at all.

Dropping her head back against the wall she’s sitting against, Darcy knows what she has to do. She doesn’t want to, but she’s spent the past three days trying to figure out a way to avoid it to no avail. The phantom voice of her mother floats through her mind telling her taking the Band-Aid off quickly will hurt less, and she sighs to herself before reaching for her pen and purple ink, flipping to the end of Loki’s missive and just doing it before she talks herself out of it. She keeps it short and sweet, both because there’s not much more to say and because the sun is rising and she’ll need to crawl into her hiding spot very soon, but tries to make it sound as mature and proper as her (rather extensive if she does say so herself) vocabulary can manage.

_I am flattered and eternally grateful for the offer, however I cannot accept. As a Midgardian, I would be unable to commit myself for that length of time. If you do not wish to continue helping me learn magic, I understand and would ask only that you give me time to find alternative arrangements outside of the palace to continue on my own._

Darcy slides the book back to its usual place once the ink is dry and crawls into her little cubby, feeling torn. She wants to be able to stay here. She wants to do the apprenticeship. She wants to learn magic. But she can’t because she won’t live that long. Which is a heavy thing to be processing when you’re 8, y’know? And she misses her family. And people in general, and food, and Cherry Coke, and sleeping in a bed. But she can’t figure out how to get home, and she can’t stay here for much longer without drawing attention to herself, so she’s stuck in this lonely, silent limbo.

Finally admitting how lonely she feels makes tears spring to her eyes almost instantly, and she makes herself not wonder how THAT happens but she doesn’t sweat no matter how many sit-ups or push-ups she does, and she never needs to pee. Or drink water to need to pee.

Instead, she just lets the tears slide sideways down her face and tries to keep her sniffles as quiet as possible until she falls asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Questions. Wariness. Distrust. Skepticism. Possibly even excitement or wonder. All things he expected in reply to his carefully-crafted plea for her to accept apprenticeship and let him help her.

But never this.

_As a Midgardian, I would be unable to commit myself for that length of time._

Loki can’t tear his eyes from the sentence. Midgardian? What? How? It makes even less sense now than it did when she was just a homeless, very magical child. Now, she’s a homeless, very magical child from another realm that has practically no magic and definitely no bifrost? 

This girl keeps getting more and more... **_impossible_**... every time he finds out anything about her.

_As a Midgardian, I would be unable to commit for that length of time._

Midgardians have pitifully short lifespans. When he was there last, making certain Thor and his band of hooligans didn’t cause too much trouble, they often barely lived half a century. They were rather primitive as well, though it’s been, oh, at least 500 years, so they may have advanced a bit by now.

Midgardian.

A Midgardian child with magic.

Who somehow found her way to the palace in the capital city of Asgard.

Then decided to secretly live in a storage cupboard and teach themself from the library. And somehow learned the Allspeak.

His mind is spinning. He can’t hope to even guess at the number of times he’s thought the words _‘it just doesn’t make sense’_ in the past week since he’d found out a bit about his pupil.

Loki can feel his mind getting caught up in useless circles, hopping from thought to emotion and back, so he closes the book and his eyes. Breathing deeply to calm himself, his fingers tap on the fabric-wrapped cover as he systematically goes over the things this changes and subsequently what options he has at this juncture. Obviously, secrecy will move to a top spot on the list of priorities.

If him suddenly appearing to have a child would cause scandal, her being Midgardian would cause pandemonium. From his father alone. And that would be impossible to hide for very long.

No, the prospect of a Midgardian child being here at all is absurd, forget him taking her as an apprentice. The public mustn’t know. Which means the servants mustn’t know. Frigga would be the only somewhat-safe option to tell at this point, but he knows that plausible deniability would be better for her should Odin find out.

So, he must figure out how and why the girl has come to be in Asgard. He must do so in secret. Whilst caring for and continuing to educate her, also in secret. Because he’s hardly about to leave her in the cupboard.

All else can wait until those things have been achieved.

Turning his attention to the most urgent of those things, he contemplates his options for secretly housing her and immediately begins crossing off possibilities, all because they would risk discovery. Thinking about his process of elimination from when he’d first found out about her living in the cupboard, his eyes pop open and tick over to the long-unused door in one corner of his sitting room.

He’d obviously dismissed the possibility of making her his chambermaid, but, as he doesn’t have any personal servants, the servant’s quarters for the position still remain unoccupied. And there is no place in the kingdom he trusts to be as secure as his own chambers.

The servants aren’t even permitted entry. 

After a series of increasingly vicious jokes on Thor when they were still adolescents and his brother’s subsequent retribution, he had forged magical security to bar anyone from entering his rooms without his express permission. The safety, in his mind, far outweighs the minor inconvenience of having to tend his own cleaning and laundry. Those things are easy enough with a bit of magical help.

Well, that takes care of that. She shall be moved to the servants rooms in his own chambers, and he will continue her tutelage here, and attempt to ascertain the less urgent matters in his free time.

Loki nearly gets up to go directly down to fetch her before thinking better of it.

Instead, he summons a pen and ink, reopening the journal to write a reply. That takes him rather longer than anticipated, as he finds himself being exceptionally solicitous in assuring her that she is in no trouble or danger, but that he can’t allow her to stay in the closet and wishes to bring her up to his chambers where she will have proper rooms of her own and needn’t worry about discovery. Once he’s done, he sets the journal aside to take back on the morrow, not wanting to scare the poor girl half to death by appearing when she’s not expecting him. Their regular schedule for passing the books back and forth would have him dropping it off tomorrow after midday but before the evening meal. He’ll take it then and give her the night to become accustomed to the idea before fetching her the day after.

Besides, that will allow him time to ensure the chambers are actually ready for her. He stands to get to walk to the discreet door and immediately finds something to be done as the hinges squeal from disuse.

‘Oil all the hinges’ he makes the mental note, touching the rune by the door to light the lamps on the walls.

The air is musty, and he moves to unlatch the windows, then the shutters. Glass swung inwards, wood outwards, fresh nearly-harvest-season evening air begins slowly seeping in with the reddish light of the sun, which is just beginning to set. Quickly, he does the same with two more windows and a door that leads out to one side of his own balcony that he had honestly forgotten was even there.

That taken care of, he turns inward again, eyes running over the furnishings that had never been moved out from whomever had occupied the space before he and Thor had been given their own chambers when they outgrew sharing the nursery chambers near their parents quarters. There’s fabric draped over the chairs and sofa arranged around the fireplace (which he notes has the same hook and grate that his own does, for cooking), presumably to protect the fabric from the dust that covers all of the tables and un-upholstered chairs in the rest of the room.

In short order, he’s carefully folding up the lengths of fabrics and stacking them next to the balcony door to be beaten out before washing, then shifting the furniture to pull up the few rugs scattered on the floor for them to get similar treatment. 

A sweep of his magic over the surface of the small dining table off to one side has the centuries of accumulated dust spinning in a vortex to be flung out one of the windows. He frowns a bit at the result. It will still need physical cleaning, and could use some attention in the form of a new coat of wood-conditioning oils. The longtime neglect is apparent.

It’s echoed in the three dining chairs around the square table, as well as the empty cabinet meant for food, enchantments for preserving and cooling having long worn off of the different shelves and drawers in it as well. The corner that holds a bookshelf and desk, with another chair for that, is in much the same shape. But those are things that he can take care of over time.

Once the majority of the dust has been sent out the windows, he moves on. The bedchamber is in a very similar state, and he eyes the mattress on the bed critically. It’s nearly flat, and had likely been old even before these chambers had been left to wither.

He’ll need to switch it out with one from one of the rarely-utilized guest chambers at the end of the hall. The ones up here on his family’s floor are only utilized perhaps once every three or four hundred years. No one will notice for a very long while.

The bathing chamber proves equally as neglected, but still thankfully functional, and he removes old bottles and jars that once would have contained various bathing oils and cosmetic products along with the dust, making a mental list of what he’ll need to acquire to have the rooms ready to house a child along the way. And when he should get what to avoid attention.

This is set to be a very long couple of days.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

Wandering through the late-morning crowds, Loki is tired. Not exhausted, but he’d gotten very little sleep the night before. Little more than a nap, truly. Cleaning supplies, he’d had on hand, and the hand-cleaning was a simple task to occupy him until the palace grew quiet enough for him to embark on his task of switching out some of the furniture with that from other quarters.

That had been a task and a half. Finding other quarters that are used rarely enough that nobody would notice the swap, but are in significantly better repair had taken a number of tries. By the time dawn had begun hinting at the horizon, though, the flattened mattress and creaky, dilapidated sofa and chairs had been traded out.

At that point, he had collapsed into bed with an alarm spell to wake him not so long later to go to break his fast in the dining hall with his parents.

Now, he has shifted his shape to one which would not draw attention buying children’s items - namely, a nondescript woman, whom he clothed in fine quality but rather plain garb and little jewelry. Someone comfortably wealthy, but not worth taking particular note of, just out stocking up on supplies for her family. It’s a guise he uses often, with variable features, so he may be out and about in the city without any fuss being made. 

His first stop is one he makes regularly enough to buy for himself - a fragrant shop that sells on behalf of a number of hygiene and cosmetic product-makers in the area. After returning the greeting of the shopkeeper, he begins his perusing. So long as he’s here, he gathers a few things he uses frequently enough to warrant having spares, then turns his attention to finding the gentler items, meant for very small children and those with skin sensitivities.

He has no idea if a Midgardian might have problems with any ingredients, after all. Caution is warranted until he knows.

After the shopkeeper has tallied what was purchased and coin handed over, Loki packs the items into his internally-expanded shoulder bag and moves on. He’s quite a few stops to make, after all. The leather-workers shop yields a bristle hairbrush and a few hides of small animals with the fur still on for him to fashion her some simple boots for the cold season. He’s no tailor or even seamster, but he, like everyone, had been taught the basics of sewing as a child, for mending his own garments. As children rarely wear anything complex or very detailed, and none but he will be seeing her anyhow, he’s confident he can at least manage some simple garments for her.

That in mind, his longest endeavor is going round to several weavershops to buy fabric. He has to spread these purchases out to not draw attention - someone buying a few lengths each of perhaps two fabrics at a shop is perfectly normal; someone buying enough fabric to fashion more than one or two items of clothing at a time is not. 

As he goes from weavershop to weavershop, he pauses at others as well, stocking up on ready-made journals, other loose paper, and large-batch standard inks, as well as paper for drawing or painting, and supplies for that to augment what he already has in his rooms. She’ll need leisure activities, after all. Yet more stalls in the market give him the other supplies he’ll need for the sewing, as well as teaching her in case she doesn’t already know the skill, more nibs for her pens, various cooking pots and other implements from the smithy, and a small selection of sweets. Standard fare will be easy enough to get from the palace stores. He stocks his own rooms with food regularly, often not wishing to go all the way down to the dining hall for evening meals when he could simply eat in the comfort of his own quarters and continue his studies or what else he may be occupied with. And he should teach her at least the same simple cooking he knows; it’s not as if he’ll always be around to feed her, and she’s at least skilled enough with coordination to handle a knife if her penmanship is any indication.

It’s well past midday meal by the time Loki arrives back in his chambers, shoulder bag bulging and heavy even with the enchantments he’s laid into it. His coinpurse is the opposite, much lighter than it’s been in many years. At least most of these things will not need to be purchased again for some time.

Perhaps. If he remembers rightly, Midgardian children grow rapidly. They must, due to their lifespans.

Ah, well, even if this becomes a yearly trip, he’ll still be spending less than Thor does in a single season at inns entertaining his friends with food and ale. 

After emptying the bag on the dining table in the servant’s rooms, he changes his appearance and clothing back to normal and pushes his tiredness aside. With a thought and a not-insignificant push of power, he takes himself to drop the journal off again, along with another bag for her to pack her things into, to let her know he will be coming to collect her the following day. Like the last time he’d dropped it off - with his carefully-crafted offer of apprenticeship - it feels wrong to ignore that he knows she’s there, stuffed into a shelf and hiding. Instead of leaving by his typical means this time, he walks out of the closet.

So long as he’s down here, he may as well have a turn through the library to augment the books from his own collection that he’ll be teaching her from. And the library is close enough to the kitchens that he might as well gather supplies from there whilst he’s at it. 

Once he’s ascended the many stairs again to the top floor of the palace which houses the quarters for the royal family, he makes his final stop for the day, to collect linens from a very similar closet to the one his pupil currently resides in.

Back in his chambers, he sorts the food into his own pantry-cupboard, as he has yet to reset the enchantments on the other one, then gets to sorting everything else out and making the rooms ready. As he does so, he reviews his mental to-do list and finds only a few things left on it. Namely, on the morrow, he will need to go down to the rooms in which his mother had stored away all his and Thor’s childhood things. Besides collecting the rest of the books there, he can get at least SOME ready-made clothing for the interim as he likely fumbles his way through attempting to sew a girls’ dress for the first time.

Nightshirts, for example, are generally unisex, particularly for children, and it shall be fine to have her in some of his old tunics and breeches. Even if she would be in public, it’s not unusual to see women dressed such in general, and girls who are running around at play even less so. It is simply more common to see them in dresses and gowns.

Much of their old clothing had long since been repurposed, altered and given to the children of servants and such, but Frigga had kept some for sentimentality’s sake. Most of their toys are still there as well, kept to be handed down to their own children one day. He shall gather a selection of his favorites whilst he’s there. Norns know what his mother will think if she discovers he’s raided the storage area; only the family have access to it, so she would know immediately it was him.

Beyond that... it’s really just ensuring that at least the basics are prepared for her. He should really find out her name as soon as possible, thinking of his pupil as ‘them’ for so long had been only slightly odd, but for some reason, now that he knows his pupil is a ‘she’, it is disconcerting to think of her only by a pronoun.

Perhaps she simply seems more real to him now that he’s seen her.

After making himself a fast meal - as he hadn’t eaten since the morning - Loki begins sorting the books he already has for her onto the shelves by the desk and arranging the other supplies for study into the desk itself. 

By the time the sun is beginning to set, he’s very ready for a bath and then his bed. 

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

Darcy fidgets nervously as she waits.

Loki had been very nice about it, but had made it clear that she would not have a choice about moving upstairs with him. He’d been equally clear, however, that she is not in trouble and will face no punishment. Just that he can’t in good conscience leave her living in the closet. He must’ve figured out she was living here when she told him she’s from Midgard. 

It’s not like it would be hard to figure out. Where else would she go in these sorts of circumstances if not to simply hunker down the one place she knew she would be safe?

So, he doesn’t seem to be angry, only mildly upset she hadn’t said anything sooner so he could’ve been helping her more months ago. And he hasn’t lied to her yet as far as she can tell, so she has no real reason to doubt his words.

But she’s still nervous. 

She hasn’t properly had contact with another person since she got stuck here. Nor has she spoken. At all. And that’s not even taking into account that she still doesn’t know how to speak Allspeak. She’ll be talking to Loki, obviously having to answer some questions at this point, and she’ll just have to do it in English.

He’d specified that he would come to gather her halfway between the midday meal and the evening meal, but she doesn’t know what time, specifically, either of those things happen, so she’d just come out from her hiding spot when her watch read 2 o’clock, after she knew no more maids would be coming in for the day.

Most of her things are in the bag he’d left, not that she has much. Just what he’d given her, plus a few of the library books she’s reading at the moment, and her old boots. She hopes he doesn’t mind her bringing the books with, since they aren’t leaving the palace.

One of the books is open in her lap, but she can’t concentrate enough to absorb the information about how eyes and brain process light input and how to use it to make things appear differently than they actually are. More explaining magic like physics. Illusions aren’t actually a construct. They’re just using magic to bend and twist the light to make others perceive something different than what their eyes are actually seeing.

Fascinating stuff. Truly.

Darcy just can’t focus on it while she waits, instead sitting leaning against the wall and fiddling with the corners of the pages.

A rush of his minty magic precedes him by a split second, and Darcy, as usual, has to clamp down on her instinctive jump as she’s startled. She’s been getting better at it, but she’s also never been out in the open and anticipating him appearing before. Thankfully, he at least appears closer to the door than normal, probably expecting her to be near her hiding place, which he also must’ve figured out. He usually pops in right in front of the shelves. He would’ve landed nearly on top of her if he’d done that now.

There’s a long moment of silence as they stare at one another, Darcy squinting slightly, as he’s still a bit far away for her poor eyesight to cope with.

“Are you ready?” he eventually asks, his voice soft and kind-sounding.

She clambers to her feet in response, and shoves the book that she’d left out into her bag. “Yeah.” her voice feels stiff and sounds croaky.

He can obviously tell that was a word in English as one of his brows twitches slightly before he regains control of it. Then, he looks the slightest bit wary as he goes on. “I realize it will be a little uncomfortable, us having only just now properly met, but I must be holding you to transport us to my quarters. I would rather not walk and risk attracting notice.” With this, he bends down to come to rest on one knee and motions her forward with a hand.

Hesitantly, Darcy steps toward him, closing the gap between them until she’s right at his side.

His left arm wraps gently around her back, while he uses his right hand to carefully take the bag from her hands. “This can be disorienting if one is unaccustomed to it. But it will be over very quickly.” He waits for a small nod that she understands, then, suddenly, his magic is pressing around her, almost like it’s trying to crush her.

But it IS over very fast. She doesn’t even have time to really be scared before the pressure lifts and she realizes they’re in a different room. An open, airy sort of living room.

Loki lets her go immediately, allowing her to take a step back, though he doesn’t stand right away. Instead, he stays down closer to her level and studies her as she struggles to take in her new surroundings.

Darcy’s eyes dart around, landing on potted plants and tables of varying size and a big fireplace and doors that lead out to what she recognizes as a balcony and very comfy-looking chairs and-

Her examination is interrupted when he speaks, asking her a question, obviously seeing her getting overwhelmed and trying to focus her attention. “Is this the first time you’ve been anywhere in the palace but the closet during the day?”

It takes her a second to process the question. Nodding, she says, “Yes. I only leave the closet at night. Once everyone but the guards is asleep.” her voice is still creaky.

Another of those beats of silence, evaluating each other. “Is this the first time you’ve spoken since you arrived here?” Darcy nods, looking down, though she doesn’t know why she’s embarrassed about it. “And you learned the Allspeak here?” Loki continues his questioning, getting another nod in response. “But you learned from the book in the library, on your own, so you only know how to read and write it.” he reaches the conclusion easily without asking her why she’s speaking English if she knows Allspeak, which they’ve been writing to each other in the whole time.

“Well, we shall rectify that,” he assures her, finally moving to stand.

Finally beginning to explain, he gestures around the room she’d been frantically taking in before. “This is the main area of my personal chambers. None that I do not purposefully let in have access to any of these rooms, so you are free to safely move about them.” He points in one direction and Darcy turns to follow the gesture, finding a wide door standing open to another room, but she can’t see anything in it. “My bedchamber and bathing chambers are through there, should you need anything during the night.” his hand shifts another direction, making Darcy turn the other way and find another door. “That is my study. You are welcome to any of the books and such in there, though almost all of them will be above your level at the moment. I ask only that you leave everything as you find it.”

She turns back to him with a nod that she understands. That’s the same rule as when she went to work with her dad at the law firm. Easy-peasy.

The next indication is another door on the same wall. “That is a storage area that I intend to convert into a small training room for the cold season. You’ll need to learn, at the least, to properly handle a blade, as well as seeing to your physical health.”

Darcy holds back a sigh. Even here she’s going to have PE. Great.

“Your chambers are through here,” Loki turns and leads her to a door in the corner that she hadn’t noticed behind him.

She follows him through it and sees, basically, a smaller version of the room they’d just left, seemingly combined with the study, as one corner is taken up with a desk and a shelf that’s mostly full of books, some of which look very familiar. 

He sets her bag on what appears to be a dinner table against one wall, then looks back and follows her gaze to the windows and door that stand open, allowing fresh air and sunlight to stream in.

“The balcony is not visible from any other place in the palace, so you may spend time out there as well,” he tells her before redirecting her attention and sending her ahead of him through the only other door. “This is your bedchamber.” he announces, though it’s fairly obvious. 

There’s a big bed on the wall opposite the door, and two more windows on the wall to the right, both standing open like the ones in the first room. The wall to the left houses - Darcy can hardly believe it - a massive proper freaking wardrobe, the thing that had started all of this, as well as another door, which can only lead to a bathroom, if the sink-like thing she sees is any indication.

Loki clears his throat, now seeming slightly tense for some reason. “I have stocked the bathing chamber with supplies. They are all unscented, I’m afraid, as I was unsure if you would have sensitivities to any of the common things we use. I will procure others once we have determined if that is the case. There is some clothing in the wardrobe, though I had no way of easily acquiring any dresses. There is, however, fabric to make them, so I thought you and I could perhaps stumble together through figuring out how to expand your wardrobe. I know only the simplest of sewing skills, so it will be a learning experience for the both of us, I expect.”

Darcy turns back to him from her examination, and nods her assent. Her nana had started teaching her to sew last time she visited, but she’s not very good at it, having no way of practicing. It seems relaxing, though.

Accepting that, he moves them on. “Would you like to bathe, change, and have some time to accustom yourself? I planned for us to have the evening meal here and simply become used to one another.”

“Sounds good.” she answers, wincing at the creakiness of her voice, wondering when that will go back to normal.

“I shall be out in my sitting room, then, when you are ready,” he replies with a small smile before he turns and strides out, pulling the door closed behind himself as he goes.

In the sudden silence, Darcy’s shoulders relax a little from the tense position she’d had them in. Taking the advice to get used to her new living situation, she stands in the doorway between her bedroom and her living room, leaning against one side of it and looking between them at a more leisurely pace. They’re plain, not really decorated at all like the hallways she’s roamed at night, or his sitting room, but maybe he’d done that on purpose so she could pick what to decorate with.

Despite the plainness, it’s more than she’s ever had to herself. And the furniture still looks way nicer than what her parents have at home.

After a few minutes of just taking it in, she straightens again and turns to go into the bathroom to do the other thing he’d suggested. While she isn’t stinky or grimy or anything, the back of the shelves were fairly dusty, and she knows that her hair, at the least, could use a good wash and brush. Once she’d realized her hair was slowly becoming more and more tangled, she’d done what she could with her fingers to work out the worst of the knots, but she doesn’t have hair ties or anything, and she’d never been very good at braiding anyway, so there wasn’t really any way for her to keep it from becoming increasingly messy.

When she catches sight of herself in the mirror in the bathroom, she knows she’d been correct about her hair, and also underestimated how dirty the rest of her is. Her clothes are tinged a greyish color from said dust, and there’s smudges of it on her face.

Yeah, a bath - or even a shower, she’s not picky - will be very welcome.

The bathroom seems to hold both, separately, as well as the big, low sink that she’d first spotted. Next to the sink is what appears to be a wicker (or something wicker-like) laundry basket. 

Across from the sink is also... a toilet? She doesn’t know what else it could be. It’s the only real major bathroom item unaccounted for, but it’s different than any other toilet she’s ever seen. It’s like a box with a hole in the top, and off to the side is a carved wood disc that’s about the same size as the hole. A cover for it? Like a toilet lid?

Well, she’s glad she doesn’t need to go to the bathroom, because she’d be extremely embarrassed to have to ask Loki how to use the toilet. She doesn’t see a flusher or any toilet paper, so she would be lost beyond the very obvious.

Getting back to the task at hand, she pulls her clothes off for the first time since she put them on back in January. It feels good.

Once they’re in the basket, she pulls a familiar-looking towel from the small set of shelves between the basket and what she’s sure is a shower stall. There’s knobs on the wall and a shower-head-looking thing in a sunken square, with a drain in the corner of that, but no sides. Darcy assumes that there’s whatever magic that keeps weather out from the balcony downstairs here as well to keep the water in.

Across from that, on the same side as the toilet thing, is a tub. That one is obvious. And HUGE. It goes lower than the floor she’s standing on, and she’s pretty sure if she got in it, the edge would come up to her belly, at least, and she would have to stretch both her arms all the way out to touch the sides. It’s long enough that she thinks Loki could lay down in it and still have room.

Between those, on the end wall, is another small, low set of shelves. She sets the towel on those and picks up the items there to look curiously at the labels. Either they’re in Allspeak or she can understand the local common language in text form, just not spoken.

There’s a few glass jars with round pouring spouts protruding from the top, and a couple tubs with screw-on lids.

Two of the jars are simple enough - ‘hair cleansing oil’ and ‘hair conditioning oil’. Shampoo and conditioner, or the Asgardian equivalent. The tub labelled only as ‘hair cream’ is more ambiguous. Is it part of the cleaning process? Or is it a styling product? Loki seems to wear his hair slicked back, like when her dad uses gel to do the same thing, so styling products have to be a thing here.

Deciding she’ll just leave that tub alone for now, she moves on. The third jar is easy again, called ‘skin cleansing solution’. Soap. Liquid soap, but soap all the same. The final tub is ‘skin conditioning cream’ and it takes her a minute to work out that it’s, like, lotion or moisturizer or something.

Her mom always puts on lotion when she gets out of the shower. Maybe that’s a normal thing that Darcy just didn’t realize because she was never told to do it.

The only other thing of note is a brush that could really only be for her hair, and she’s grateful for it.

Thinking she doesn’t want to bother with filling the massive tub even partway, Darcy steps into the sunken shower area and moves to the nods on the wall. There’s three, in a triangle formation. The bottom two are labelled with a little carving - hot and cold. The top one is not labelled, but she’ll figure it out.

Bracing for what she expects to be a blast of cold water before it warms up - like at home - Darcy puts a hand on each of the hot and cold knobs and twists.

No water comes out, though.

Oh. Maybe the top one is an on/off? That would be handy. You could have the temperature always set and just turn the flow off when you’re done and it will be the same next time. Nifty.

Bracing again, she turns the top ones and is, indeed, splattered with cold water, though not as cold as she expected. 

Mostly not under the actual stream of water, she fiddles with the temperature knobs until she figures out which way is more and which is less for each of them, and works toward adjusting it, testing the water by sliding her foot into the path of the stream after each adjustment. Once it’s hot, she steps under it and... oh yeah. That feels good. 

Of all the things she’s actively missed about home, bathing hadn’t entered her mind, but she swears she’ll never take this simple thing for granted ever again.

After a long time just enjoying the feeling of water running over her, she adjusts her position and opens her eyes, looking each of the two shelving options over before realizing there’s no washcloth- or loofa-like things to wash with. Not a thing or did Loki forget? Thinking back, she doesn’t recall seeing any in the closet she’s spent months in, so she’ll go with ‘not a thing’. Hands it is.

Starting with her hair, Darcy guesses at how much of the oil she’ll need, then reaches up to start rubbing it onto her head. It doesn’t lather like she’s used to shampoo doing. There’s almost no bubbles at all. So, she reaches for the bottle again to get a little more, which also doesn’t bubble. Shrugging at that point, she just rubs it over her scalp, trying to avoid tugging at any of the tangles in her hair. When she thinks she’s done, she steps under the water again to rinse it out, and, once the slippery oil is gone, her scalp does feel like she’d just shampooed it, so it had to have worked.

The liquid soap stuff is much the same, not lathering, so she just takes little drops at a time and rubs them into her skin, still not really feeling anything but the slick texture until she rinses off and suddenly feels squeaky clean.

Faced with the final task, she can only assume that the conditioner oil works the same way as conditioner at home and she should rinse it out. If that’s not correct, she’ll find out soon enough, and can always put more on after her shower is done if she needs to.

Once the water is off and she’s wrestled the massive (but very soft) towel around to dry off, she feels her hair and discovers that, yes, the conditioner oil goes on after and stay there. Her hair feels like dead grass after washing it off and squeezing the water out. So, she smoothes more onto her damp hair and tries to rub it in without making even more tangles.

Deciding to just go for it, she rubs the lotion all over as well, and marvels at the effect. Her skin hadn’t been rough before, but after the lotion goes on, it feels smoother than she can ever recall it being.

A testing touch of her hair later has her deciding to put more oil on it. It’s still dry even after the oil sitting on it for the few minutes the lotion took.

When it feels like her normal hair again, she stops, then picks up the brush and starts working on the tangles, sitting on the side of the tub. THIS part takes forever, but she just keeps reminding herself that it’ll only be this once and as long as she keeps on top of it every day now that she can, it will only take a minute. Almost this exact situation had happened a couple years ago when her mom decided she was old enough to handle bathing and stuff on her own, and she hadn’t brushed her hair for like 2 weeks.

It had taken her mom almost an hour to get it all untangled, and it had hurt, and Darcy had never let it get that bad again, until now, when she hadn’t really had a choice.

According to the watch face still dangling from her wrist, it only takes a half hour before she’s pretty sure she got at least most of them, and her hair is nearly dry by then as well.

As her eyes catch on the laundry basket as she walks back toward her bedroom, a surprising flood of relief rolls through her. She has different clothes to wear. CLEAN ones. For her CLEAN body. 

Wait what do Asgardians do about toothbrushing?

Pushing that random thought aside, she just goes out to explore the big wardrobe. Once the doors of it are open, she sees drawers taking up about half the space on the left-side area, going about halfway up, then some thin shelves above those attached to the side, and she thinks there might be a mirror attached to the back over the drawers but she can’t really see it.

The rest of the space is empty, with 2 rails at different heights on the drawers side and just one at the top on the other side.

Pulling drawers open carefully, she finds one has maybe ten pairs of pants that look like they’re different sizes, like Loki wasn’t sure what size she would need. Which makes sense. The drawer above that has about as many shirts, also in different sizes, but she thinks it doesn’t matter as much as long as she’s covered. The pants at least have to fit well enough to stay up. Unless she finds a belt somewhere.

The only other drawer has a few big, thin, but very soft longer shirts. Pajamas? She’s always preferred flannel pants or cotton shorts (depending on the season) and a tank top, but she has a couple nightgowns that her grandma gave her at some point. She’ll just have to make do, since it looks like that’s her only option.

Closing that drawer, she rummages through the others, pulling out what looks like the smallest options for pants and a shirt, pausing only momentarily as she realizes there’s no underwear, then just pulling the pants up her legs with a mental shrug.

The pants are just a tad loose on her, but she finds they’ll at least stay up if she ties the laced strings at the front as tight as she can. The shirt is the same style that Loki wears, and in what she thinks is the same color green he usually wears as well. With that realization, she also notes that the pants - all of them - are black like he wears. The shirts in the drawer have more variety, but not much, now that she thinks about it. There were several green, a few black ones, and a few white-ish ones.

Are these his old clothes?

Is that weird that she’s wearing his old clothes?

She’s had plenty of Jake’s old tee shirts and sweaters before, so it’s not like hand-me-downs are a new concept. But Jake’s her brother. Loki.... she technically hardly knows at all, despite their having been sort-of communicating for months now. Plus, he’s a full adult. She doesn’t even know how old. Jake’s only a few years older.

Well, it’s not like she has any other option at the moment, except the clothes she came here in, and the thought of going into the bathroom and putting those back on right now fills her with a sense of dread.

Yeah, hand-me-downs are fine.

Redressed, Darcy wanders back out to her sitting room, seeing her bag still on the table with chairs around it between two of the windows. Deciding to unpack it, she retrieves it and goes over to... her desk. Loki had said these are her rooms. So she can poke around them all she pleases, right?

She pulls all the books and the two journals out first, leaving the journals on her desk and sliding the other into some of the free spaces on the shelves.

There’s little nooks along the back edge of the desk, one of which has a plain pen poking out of it, so she carefully drops the pens Loki had gifted her in a few of the others, then lines up the one-and-a-half bottles of ink she has left in front of them, putting the three empty ones off to the side for the moment. All that’s left is her boots, which she hasn’t worn since arriving here. Holding them and looking at them critically, she heads back into her bedroom and looks around, realizing there’s a few chests of some sort, probably for storage. Two at the foot of the bed, and one under each of the windows.

Picking one of the window ones, she works the top open and finds it empty, so she drops her boots in and closes it again.

She doesn’t even want to look at them. All they do is remind her of what led to her getting stuck here. Being attacked in the bathroom at school, the mean sneer on James Matthews’ face just before he shoved her as hard as he could.

Focusing her mind back on her exploring, Darcy opens the other chests to find the other window one empty, but things in the two by the bed. One holds a few blankets of different materials - and one actual FUR at the bottom. The other has what she’s sure are spare sheets, as well as a few rags that are somewhat carelessly half-wadded and half-folded. There’s some visible stains on them that immediately put her in mind of the cleaning rags under the kitchen sink at home.

That’s really it for things to explore in the bedroom, so she goes back out to the only thing left in the sitting room. A big cupboard against the wall opposite the windows, on the other side of the sofa from the dining table. To the side of it, there’s also a longer, narrowish table with two short drawers and a few shelves below it that she hadn’t noticed. Visible on the shelves are plates, bowls - both the eating kind and what looks like the mixing kind - and a smooth plank of wood for.... Something? Maybe a cutting board? There’s also a couple metal cups that have a weird, dented texture. But like it’s that way on purpose. It’s uniform over all of them.

She opens the cupboard doors to find... nothing. 

Before she can start contemplating what it’s meant for, there’s a tap on the door out to Loki’s chambers and a beat before the door swings open.

Loki sees her staring into the cupboard immediately and offers, “Ah, the enchantments to preserve food have worn off, so I didn’t want to stock it just yet. We’ll both be using the one in my sitting room until I can get new enchantments placed on that one.”

Wait, this cupboard is some kind of magical fridge? That is SO COOL. Magic is awesome.

But also wait... should she tell him she doesn’t need to eat?

Through the open door, she can smell some kind of cooking food. And it smells GOOD.... so maybe eating is like showering was? Like, she doesn’t, strictly, NEED to do it, but she probably CAN, and maybe even should. But then she’ll probably need to figure out the toilet situation...

Loki interrupts her musings. “The food is nearly ready. Would you care to come out? We have much to discuss.” Darcy nods sheepishly, closing the door to the fridge-cupboard and moving to follow him back out to his sitting room.

He doesn’t seem to notice her internal debate as he keeps speaking. “It is still warm enough out that I would usually not have a hot meal, but as you’ve been sneaking down to the kitchens at night for so long, I thought you might appreciate one. I trust a stew will not be disagreeable to you?”

“That’s fine,” she replies, attempting to change the subject away from her eating habits since she’s been here. “I’m Darcy, by the way. Since I haven’t actually introduced myself.”

“Ah, yes, that was, incidentally, going to be my next question.” Loki sounds pleased at her offering of her name. They reach HIS dining table and he pulls out a chair, motioning her up into it, then scootching it in for her once she’s up there. She’s glad for that, as her toes don’t even reach the floor. She wouldn’t have been able to do it herself.

There’s two place settings out already, and the utensils look... strange. There’s a knife that looks much sharper than she’s usually allowed to use without very close supervision, and the other thing looks like it can’t decide if it wants to be a fork or a butter knife. There’s two fork... thingies, she can’t remember the word for them... on one side, while the other half is a single piece of metal shaped like the end of a butter knife.

There’s more cups like she’d seen in her rooms and also one of the wood plank things - it has a loaf of bread on it, so maybe it’s for that? Or could it be used for other things? The only other thing is a jug of what she assumes to be water or something.

Her examination is interrupted when Loki returns from where he’d gone after seating her - towards the fireplace she hadn’t even realized was crackling. Oh. Right. Cooking over fire is a thing. And here she’d been expecting an electric stove... duh, Darcy. Do they even have electricity here? She still doesn’t know how the lamps on all the walls are powered.

When he gets back to the table, he sets a deep pan - like something between a frying pan and a pot - on some sort of pad made of that same wicker-ish thing her laundry basket’s made of. 

Then he moves off again, but Darcy’s eyes follow him this time, finding a cupboard and narrow table setup like in her room, but his looks much fancier and better quality. Makes sense, she guesses. He’s the prince, right? Of course he’ll have the nicest stuff. She watches him pull open a drawer and fetch out something that - finally - looks familiar; a big serving spoon.

In a moment, he’s spooning chunks of meat and... potatoes? And maybe carrots? Onto her plate, then serving himself, cutting them each a hunk of bread from the loaf, and pouring whatever’s in the jug into their cups before he sits himself.

Darcy takes the cup first, curious and also wanting to try and watch how he uses the odd utensil before attempting it herself.

She’s not disappointed in her plan. He digs into his food immediately, using the sharp knife to cut the meat into smaller pieces, then the big part of the not-fork to do the same with the maybe-potatoes, then using the other half like a fork. Once this is confirmed, she stops to actually take note of what she’s been cautiously sipping on while watching Loki.

It seems to be some kind of fruit juice. But with other stuff. Like the apple cider her dad makes at Christmas with cinnamon and orange peels and stuff.

She decides she likes it, and sets her cup back down, picking up her utensils and trying to imitate how Loki is holding his, carefully digging into the meal and finding it as delicious as it smells. He was right. She really is appreciative of a hot meal after so long.


	7. Chapter 7

Loki stays quiet and doesn’t comment through the first portion of the meal. Her hesitation before eating had been obvious, and it hadn’t taken long to figure out why as she studied his hands, so he deliberately exaggerated his movements to demonstrate.

Earth eating implements must be rather different. At least different enough for her to need to see how these are used.

His thought is basically confirmed as she somewhat-clumsily copies him. After a few quiet minutes of them eating, she screws up her face and tries to be discreet as she swaps which hands she’s holding them in, and seems to have a better time managing the blade after. Her left hand is her dominant one, then. That will be useful to know.

He somewhat expected her to be bursting with questions. After all, being locked in the closet all day and only sneaking out in the dead of night must mean that she isn’t accustomed to much of Asgard despite having been here for at least three seasons. But, instead of asking, she just quietly observes through big eyes, almost visibly using logic to work out what things are or how they work.

Watching her take in and puzzle out everything has been interesting to watch, and seeing her tackling a task using unfamiliar means is enlightening. Even just the small matter of eating, carefully waiting to see what to do before attempting it, had given him quite a bit of insight about her.

She seems very independent, which shouldn’t surprise him given her circumstances. 

That’s good, because, whilst he will care for her, he simply has too much to do most days to be here and minding her constantly. 

The past few days have been an anomaly. Typically, any given day would include mandatory morning training (meaning breaking his fast in his rooms or the soldiers’ dining hall before dawn, when training commences, and going on until nearly the midday meal, only enough time to clean up to be appropriate for the royal dining hall between) and most would also have at least one meeting after midday meal with the council and his father, or some lord or other, or perhaps he’ll have petitions to review or other various paperwork. Princely duties and all. It only happens that nearly everything, from training to meetings, halts for several days as the weather begins cooling to allow everyone to prepare for the harvest festival, so he’s had these free of obligation.

She’ll be on her own more time than not. An already-established sense of independence will make that easier for her.

Darcy. Her name is Darcy. He will need to train himself into using it.

Once she seems to have the hang of the utensils, he initiates conversation again. “Do you know how you came to be here?”

“No,” she sighs out after she finishes her bite. “The first time, I wished I could go to another world where magic was real right before I fell asleep, and I woke up in that closet. Then I found the library and the Allspeak book. When it started getting light out, I went back to the closet and wished myself home right before I fell asleep. Then I came back the next night, and... just kept coming most nights to work on figuring out the Allspeak book.”

It’s the most she’s said so far by quite a bit, but he still interrupts her to clarify, “Have you not always been here since arriving?”

She shakes her head. “Most of last fall and part of winter, it was just at night.”

“Fall? Winter?” is his next clarification.

This one, she looks perplexed at. Perhaps they are terms or something exceptionally obvious on Midgard but he doesn’t know it. After a moment, she seems to find a different way to describe it. “Um... a little later than this time last year, and part of when there was snow?”

“The harvest season and the cold season,” he says.

Darcy shrugs and reaches for her cup of spiced fruit juice. He’d had to bring a cask of it up from kitchen storage whilst she bathed, as it hadn’t occurred to him before that point that she’s still a bit young to be drinking mead or wine with every meal, and that or water is all he had. After a sip, she goes on in her raspy voice, the longtime disuse of it nearly painful to hear. “So, I came here nearly every night last harvest season and into the cold season, to study. Then, a boy at school attacked me, and... I was suddenly just here. I was REALLY tired. And I couldn’t get back like I normally did. I still try sometimes when I fall asleep, but I never end up home.” she looks sad and he can understand why. Being stuck on another realm away from your family would be difficult at any age, much less so young. And especially unintentionally.

He’s been operating under the assumption that she would want to stay. “Do you wish to go home? If that is the case, I can take you back to Midgard. So long as you might help me navigate to your province, I can see you back to your family.” he offers, not knowing whether he hopes for her to decline or not.

This makes her think hard and she sets her implements down on her plate, fiddling with the blunt ends as she does. 

That, at least, is a sign she doesn’t desperately wish to flee Asgard. There’s opportunity here for her that rivals what she had in Midgard, and she knows it, even young as she is.

While she contemplates that, Loki’s mind whirs through various magical theorae matching her description of her trips here to possibilities. Given the method, astral projection fits best, but still not perfectly. For that, she would not be tangible, corporeal. She may well not even be visible, depending on her power and skill levels.

It’s a surprisingly long time before she says anything, and when she does, it’s not truly an answer. “I don’t know. I miss my family... but... I don’t think there’s much else for me there. I have magic. I think.... I think I might be... a mutant.” This word doesn’t translate in the Allspeak either, but the low tone of slight fear she said it with tells him that it isn’t a good thing. In any case, she goes on before he can question it. “And if I am, then there’s not many options for me. Even if I could’ve hidden my magic, people at my school hated me for how smart I am, and my parents didn’t want to let me advance as far ahead of my peers as I needed to to really be learning. That’s why that boy attacked me. Because I was younger than him and smarter, and he didn’t like that. I don’t think it would’ve gotten any better until I was an adult, at the earliest. And if I slipped and showed my magic even once to the wrong people....” the fear on her face is more pronounced now, and he isn’t sure he WANTS to know what they do to people who have magic on Midgard.

She doesn’t seem inclined to continue, so he offers, “Well, for the moment, we will keep you here, then, whilst I attempt to ascertain how it is you came to be on Asgard.” Darcy nods slightly, and slowly picks her utensils up to begin eating again. “Darcy,” he catches her attention and waits for her to look over to him. “If you ever decide you want to go home, all you have to do is say so.” she nods her understanding and Loki turns back to his food as well, getting lost in his own thoughts.

So much to consider already.

She began coming here on a voluntary, if initially accidental, basis. She did so for a few moons before becoming stuck here after a traumatic event. Somehow, she has a body. There’s no way she would have had the power to transport her actual body halfway across Yggdrasil. HE doesn’t even have that kind of power capacity, and his knowledge base is broader than she has likely even imagined was possible.

Which means that, somehow, she astral projected, or something similar, across the void and several realms, and manifested herself a seemingly fully-functional body here.

But... seemingly fully-functional is vague at best. It might not be fully functional. It might not even be Midgardian. He assumes it is either identical to her true form or at least externally resembles it so closely that she doesn’t notice any differences, since she hasn’t said anything about her appearance changing. And her Midgardian clothing and jewelry manifested as well, he notes as a bit of light catches on the silver at her wrist.

That idea lends itself to her doing the manifesting, likely unknowingly. Somehow.

The idea that she could have done any of this inadvertently boggles the mind. Though perhaps that is why she could do it. She didn’t intend to, her subconscious just used her magic to do what she wanted, uninhibited by accepted principles of magic, for she hadn’t been taught any of them.

Loki shall need to review various diagnostic and identification practices, to determine what sort of body she created for herself.

By the time he’s done with his second helping of food, she is mostly just pushing a few remaining bits of boiled roots around her plate and shredding the last bits of her bread. When he drops his eating implements, she seems to come back to the situation and asks, “Should I wash the dishes?” which seems odd to him. She’s not a servant, why would she assume she needs to?

“No, I shall see to it later,” he replies, then asks curiously, “Would you normally at home?” the only explanation he can think of for the odd question.

Darcy nods and takes the cup he had just refilled with juice a few minutes previously before wriggling out of her chair before he can stand to pull it out for properly for her. “My mom or dad cooked, and my brother and I did the dishes after. I’m still too short to reach the cupboards, so I washed, and he dried and put everything away.”

“Is that a common practice on Midgard?” is his next question.

“Yeah.” she replies as they move to the sitting area. “We had other chores, too. Jake takes out the trash and mows the grass, or shovels snow, depending on the season.” Many more terms that Loki doesn’t understand, but he again doesn’t interrupt to clarify. There’s plenty of time. “I helped mom with cleaning stuff. As long as we did all of our chores, we got our allowance. I saved all mine up for a long time and bought this....” she lifts up her wrist that bears a bracelet with differently-shaped pendants attached to it, and also seems to think about how to describe the time frame to him, having realized they have different ways of identifying things like seasons. Sharp girl. “Not long before I got stuck here,” she eventually finishes the thought, seeming to have given up on whatever she meant to try and explain.

“And your ‘allowance’ - this is... pocket money? And ‘chores’ are household tasks?” he surmises.

Darcy nods. “Do kids not have to do chores here? Or get... pocket money?” she inquires.

“Not as such.” he tells her. “Children spend much of their days occupied with their schooling, and their free time is given to play or learning hobbies or other skills. They would tidy up after themselves, put away the things they use and whatnot, and you will need to clean your dishes in your rooms when you use them. But most housekeeping duties are generally left to older adolescents and adults; those old and learned enough to be working, either in their family trade or working for coin from others. If they have aught they wish to purchase, they would simply ask their parents and either be told yes or no, or perhaps encouraged to master a thing they have been struggling with to get their desired object as a reward.”

“Adolescents?” she asks, testing the word out. Obviously this is another thing Midgardians have a unique term for.

“AdolescenCE is the time of one’s life betwixt childhood and adulthood. An adolescenT is someone in that time of their life.” he explains.

Understanding steals over her features. “Ah. Okay. I think I’ve heard teenagers get called that before, but I don’t think I ever knew what it meant.”

“Teenagers?” it’s his turn to question.

With a deep breath, she tells him plainly, “Our lives are super short compared to you guys.” before he can comment, she is moving on. “Our.. adolescent.... years are when our age numbers in the ‘teens’; thirTEEN, fourTEEN...”

“Making the adolescent time casually referred to as the teen-ages,” he says, understanding. “And those in it teen-agers.”

“Exactly.” she confirms before remembering her drink and taking a long sip.

This does bring up another relevant question, made easier now that she has inadvertently given him a frame of reference. “And how old are you?”

“Eight.” she answers, then looks a little sad. “But I was still seven when I got stuck here.”

“Your natality passed while you were...” he realizes too late how insensitive the question is and trails off. She looks at him with her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. “The... anniversary of your birth?” he tries to clarify.

Her face relaxes sadly again. “My birthday. Yeah. It’s....” she looks frustrated again before asking “When it’s hot outside?”

“The warm season,” he tells her, then asks, “What is your word for it?”

“Summer,” is the reply. “And, yes, my birthday is near the beginning of the warm season.”

The thought saddens him, as well. Even as many as Aesir have, one’s natality rarely passes completely without remark. There is usually no big occasion, but one’s family and close friends will often get them some small treat or trinket, and have one’s favorite foods at the evening meal, perhaps making an effort to have at least part of the day clear of obligations to simply spend time together.

She’d spent hers alone hiding in a closet this year.

“How do you guys measure months? Or do you? If you do, what are the names? When do they start? How long are they? What about weeks? Are those a thing here?” the questions are beginning to flow more freely as she relaxes. “If you asked someone when their... natality is, how would they answer?” she stumbles only slightly using his word for the occasion of topic.

Smiling, he patiently answers, “I believe months are what we refer to as moons. They are measured from when the moons in the night sky nearly disappear to the next time they do so. There are 32 days from one new moon to the next. They do not have names; we call them by which moon it is in relation to the nearest season change. For example, in three days time, we will enter a new moon, and it will be the first moon of the harvest season. We do have weeks, and even call them that, interestingly enough. They are neight days long, with four in a moon.” The final question, he offers a fair trade for the personal information she gave him. “And if I were telling you when my natality is, I would say ‘the first day of the first moon of the planting season’. My brother would say ‘the twelfth day of the final moon before the cold season’.”

“When does a new year start?” the question shoots out immediately from her.

“The first day of the first moon of the cold season. The first day after the longest night.” he replies just as quickly.

Darcy sighs dramatically and slumps a little bit. “That makes SO much more sense than how we do it. Even if your years are 19 days longer.”

“Oh? What is the Midgardian system?” he’s finding the topic surprisingly interesting for being such a basic thing. It likely never would have occurred to him that they even might be different.

She seems to brace herself before launching an explanation. “We have 365 and one quarter days in a year.” He’s already confused. How can you have a quarter of a day in a year? “But we count it as 365, and every fourth year it’s 366 and February, the second month, gets an extra day those years. That’s called a leap-year. For normal years, January, March, May....” she already looks tired, and sidetracks to say, “It’s easier to write it down.” then hops off the chair she’d settled in, sets down her cup, and darts over to the door to her rooms, emerging again a moment later with their shared journal, one of her pens, and a half-empty bottle of her purple ink.

“Seriously, our system is so weird. Trying to explain it is just... ugh...” she chatters distractedly as she sits herself in front of the low table in front of the sofa, next to where she’d set her cup, and Loki can’t help but smile as he watches her flip to a blank page, open her ink bottle, and start writing.

An odd fondness wells in him, and he finds her.... adorable. 

She continues to chatter as she writes, though about something off-topic. “I’m so used to writing Allspeak now, writing English feels weird. Especially since I use different hands to write them. I haven’t written with my right hand in forever.” This comment makes him pay more attention and he notes that, indeed, she is writing with her non-dominant hand. Just from the positioning of the pen, he can envision how the flow of ink would differ from what he’s used to seeing in her penmanship that would indicate she’s using a different hand.

“Have you tried writing your native tongue with your left hand?” he inquires.

“Yeah.” she replies, still scratching away. “My teacher had all of us try both hands when we were learning to write. My right one was always more comfortable. But Allspeak is more comfortable on my left for some reason.”

“But you CAN use either for either language?” he pushes. “It is simply that they are easier on one side or the other?”

Darcy nods. “Yeah. My penmanship is a lot worse if I try to use the wrong hand, but you can still read it.”

“Like when you tried to copy me and use your knife in your right hand to eat,” he says thoughtfully, and gets another nod. She’s ambidextrous, then, and her dominant hand is dependent upon the task she’s performing. That could be both a boon and a bother. A boon, because it’s useful to be able to use either hand for any given skill. A bother, because it will take longer to teach both sides to perform a given task proficiently.

Before long, he’s handed the journal, which does indeed have some slightly-complicated-looking diagrams to explain how Midgardians measure out the year. They have twelve months/moons as well, but each has a unique name, the number of days in them are variable and the seasons.... Well.

Darcy has drawn out a chart for the twelfth month, December, and indicated a block of three days with an annotation that the longest night of the year is generally one of those three, but it changes yearly, while the new year begins after the 31st day of December regardless of what day the longest night falls on. Weeks are only seven days, and each of the seven has a unique name. It appears a month can begin on any given day of the week, and there is a new moon every 29th or 30th day, which can also land on any day of the week, or anytime throughout a month....

She’s right, it makes very little sense.

Once he’s taken the nonsensical system in and grasped the idea, he asks one of the questions she had asked him before. “And how would you express a particular day?”

“With the name of the month and the number of the day,” she answers. “Like, my birthday is June 20th. Which is usually on or a day or two before the longest day of the year.”

“But, as with the longest night, the longest day can be any one of a few days, I suppose?”

“Yeah,” she confirms. “But sometimes we also say the day in relation to some fixed events throughout the year. Like, we have a major holiday in the winter, Christmas, that’s always on December 25th, and New Year is always January 1st, so we might say that a particular day is, I don’t know, three days before Christmas, or five days after New Years.”

“We sometimes do the same, though the only true universal event we have is the harvest festival, which will commence on the new moon three days hence and continue for one week, to herald in the harvest season.” Examining the lists and diagrams again, he is again surprised at how fascinating such simple differences are.

Changing the topic, he tells her, “I would like you to practice each language using your ‘wrong’ hands. Going forward, any skill you learn, I would like you to do the same - practice with both hands so you are proficient with anything on either side. The fact that you can use either is a great advantage, which would benefit from you taking in full.”

Darcy frowns a little as she moves back up to the chair she had vacated, but she nods an assent regardless.

Deciding to try and get to know her a little more personally, he settles in and asks what he hopes is an easy and light question. “Are you close with your brother?” Her smile is a little sad, but she immediately begins telling him about her brother, Jake, and he responds in kind with stories of he and Thor when they were children.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

Darcy sits on a cushioned chair on the balcony after setting the cup of water she’d just gotten herself on the table beside it, tired.

Tired in what she thinks is a good way, though.

In the last few days, everything has changed. For the second time this year. Her life is unrecognizable from about a year ago when she accidentally started coming here. And nearly unrecognizable from last week when she was living in a closet.

Loki has been very nice to her. When he started clearing out the storage room that he said he wanted to make into a little gym for her, he let her have her pick of any of the painting, tapestries, and rugs before he moved them out to some other storage place. Then, he’d helped her put down the three rugs - she wouldn’t have been able to move the furniture - and hang the two paintings she’d liked in the places she wanted them. She’d also gotten another bookshelf, and a table thing that he put in her bedroom and called a ‘dressing table’. It has a mirror and a matching bench, and as far as she can tell it’s for getting ready, doing your hair and stuff.

Apparently, it’s mostly stuff that had furnished his rooms at one point or another that had simply gone into storage when he found something he liked better to replace it.

It’s all really pretty stuff, so she doesn’t even care that it’s his old stuff. Two of the rugs are a matching pair that he said he thinks some foreign dignitary had gifted him a really long time ago and he’d never even used them because they were the totally wrong colors for his rooms. She had him put one under the sofa and chair, and the other under her desk. The purple and light-gold and white-ish colors are all ones that she likes, and her rooms already feel more homey with the thick, soft lines twisting around each other on the floor.

The only other thing she’d asked for was the plant-pots that had been in there. She likes all the plants around his rooms, and asked if she could have some of her own. Loki had smiled at that and agreed readily, though he also warned her that it would be a long-term thing for her to work on.

Right now, he’s at the harvest festival, and he had set her a couple tasks for the day before promising to bring her a few things back.

She just got done with the exercises he wants her to do every day, plus one new one that he is probably going to add to that list. It’s her second day doing the morning workout, and her body.... It doesn’t hurt. Surprisingly. She expected to hurt after doing little more than taking short walks for so long.

It feels weird. Yeah. Weird’s the right word.

She’s pretty sure there’s something changing in her body, but she doesn’t know what. Not just muscles getting used. Her prediction had come true; she can eat and drink, but that had made her need to start using the toilet. What she hadn’t expected was to start feeling hungry and thirsty after a few meals. It’s like her body had been hibernating, like a bear or something, and giving it food had woken it up. She has more energy (when she’s not just gotten done with a workout that she thinks Loki had assigned her forgetting that she’s a child).

That’s the other weird part. The energy. Not just that she has it, but... how it feels. THAT it feels. Or, rather, that she can feel it. Little rivers of energy flowing through what she thinks is her veins. She can track if from the point her body digests the food straight to where every bit ends up, if she can be bothered to pay attention for that long.

But maybe she’s always been able to feel it and didn’t notice until it wasn’t happening for a really long time.

Darcy knows she needs to tell Loki. That it’ll probably help him figure out how and why she’s here. But there’s something making her not tell him. It just feels like a bad idea, even though she knows it won’t hurt or probably even DO anything.

Anyway, her body isn’t acting like she’s used to. She needs the toilet, but not as much as she would expect with how much she’s suddenly eating and drinking. And she’s eating and drinking way more than she thinks she used to. A bunch of exercise that she’s not used to doing just makes her a little tired and a tiny bit sore, both of which were gone yesterday after a snack and a rest. This morning, she’d looked outside and realized she can actually make out the individual shapes of the buildings in the city below. Not details, but they aren’t all merging into the multicolored blob dotted with occasional lights that she’s used to.

She also realized yesterday, when Loki was showing her how to wash her clothes in the big sink in the bathroom, that she hadn’t grown since she arrived. That might have something to do with the not eating. But usually, and pair of jeans would only fit her for MAYBE 6 months. Like most kids, from what she knows. They just grow out of clothes quickly. It’s what they do.

But her jeans and sweater had still fit exactly the same when Loki brought her upstairs as the day she arrived.

Maybe she’ll start growing fast again now that she’s eating. Maybe her magic will behave differently. Only time will tell.

Her next thought is somewhat related. Before she admitted it to Loki, she had actively tried to not think about HOW she has magic. The only people on Earth - Midgard - that have REAL magic are mutants. She knows that. She always knew that, she just didn’t want to think about it before because having magic is exciting and she didn’t want to ruin it by admitting that she’s almost certainly a mutant.

Mutants.... are not really in a good position back home. Most people are afraid of them, or disgusted by them, don’t even consider them human. Her parents both fell into the fear category. Any time anything about mutants came on the news, the comments about how they needed to be ‘kept away from normal people, for safety’ were quick to follow.

Darcy doesn’t know much about mutants, other than there was something in their DNA that mutated and allows them to do things most humans can’t. That, in itself, never seemed like a big deal to her, but she’d always thought maybe there was something about it that she was just too young to understand.

The attitude of vague fear about them had been adopted because of that. 

The adults in her life insisted there was something to be afraid of, and she trusted them because they were older and knew more. Except, then they proved that they can be really stupid about some pretty simple things - like letting her be in the grade she was supposed to be in - and suddenly she couldn’t blindly trust their opinions anymore. But mutants aren’t something that get talked about every day. That specific issue wasn’t one that she had been forced to think critically about, even once part of her knew she IS one.

Now, she has to; to change her own automatic thoughts about it. Because here, having magic is totally normal. Every person uses it in some way every single day without even thinking about it, even if they don’t study it. Here, she’s not a freak. And it won’t help anyone, especially her, if she keeps thinking of mutants, and, by default, herself in that manner.

And it had hurt to admit that to herself and realize that, much as she misses her family, she doesn’t miss them enough that she’s willing to go back to being a freak. Even if she lives and dies in less than 100 years on Asgard, at least she won’t have to worry about being locked up and experimented on, or attacked walking down the street for something that she can’t help. 

All of these thoughts swirl around her head as she drinks her water and stares out at the clear, blue sky and sprawling city.

By the time her water is gone, and she knows she has to go back inside and get started on her other assignment from Loki - practicing writing with her ‘wrong’ hand and practicing the sounds that Loki taught her for some of the Allspeak alphabet while she does - Darcy is determined. She’s extremely lucky. A brand new, better-than-she-ever-could-have-hoped-for-back-home, life has been handed to her when she’s still young enough to take advantage of it. 

And she is going to do anything and everything she can to take advantage of it.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

“Oh, there you are darling,” Frigga says distractedly as she glances up at his approach before going back to her task of carefully sorting bulbs, tubers, and cuttings. It’s the time of year that she thins out her private garden and some of her favorite sections of the main gardens, bringing the hardier plants back under control before winter and getting cuttings of the more delicate plants to start afresh indoor through the cold time to be replanted when the snow melts.

He’d come today intentionally to discuss some theory with her, knowing he would be allowed his choice of the vegetation. For many, many years, he helped her tend her garden, gaining a fondness for and learning the herbalism arts in the process, so it’s not unusual for him to add to his own collection when she does this every year. 

And he DID promise to teach Darcy how to grow plants so that she may have her own; what better way than to start at the beginning.

She’s in the courtyard that serves as the entrance to her private garden to do her sorting before packing her haul carefully into baskets to be taken to her weaving chambers. “I assume you chose today to ask my counsel to make your yearly perusal?” she teases as he joins her and immediately begins helping.

“Naturally,” he confirms affably, already setting things aside.

She hums amusedly before prompting, “And will this counsel have anything to do with what has had you so distracted these past weeks?”

“Possibly.” he answers as neutrally as possible, unsurprised that she has noticed his distraction. “A hypothetical - potentially impossible - thought has taken residence in my mind and will not cease pestering. I am currently attempting to determine if it might be supported by some amalgam of established theorea.”

Frigga laughs lightly and shakes her head a bit. “At least it is not mischief that has captured your imagination this time. Tell me then.”

“It is possible - extremely difficult, but possible - to create a living body, but not to give it true life,” he begins by stating one of the most basic tenets of magical practice, getting her full attention turned on him immediately with a half-worried look. “But if someone were astral projecting, might it be possible to create a living body around their essence?”

The worry slowly eases as his mother takes that in, obviously determining he’s not dabbling in something... unnatural. It’s a thoughtful silence as the both continue sorting.

“In theory,” she eventually begins slowly answering him. “I see no reason that could not be done. Practically, the amount of power and coordination... unless the magic was spontaneous, but there is no way to study spontaneous magic. That’s why anything in regards to it is theoretical.”

“That is where I am stuck as well.” he concurs. “No firm reason that it would be impossible, but no evidence supporting the possibility, either. Presuming it might be possible, what do you imagine might happen to the original body of the one projecting?”

Another thoughtful precedes her answers, “If they do not return to it, I imagine it would behave as a magically-created body would without housing a life essence. Wither and eventually die.”

Loki makes a noise of acknowledgement. His conclusion had been the same. This talk was truly a last resort to see if he may have missed something obvious. But it appears he hadn’t; so far Frigga’s line of thought had been identical to his own.

“What even brought this thought about?” is her next question.

Sighing and setting aside a few flower bulbs, he asks a different question in return. “How much plausible deniability do you wish to retain?”

This earns him that universal ‘mother’ look of combined warning and chastisement. “I hope you are being exceptionally cautious. Meddling in matters so outside the realm of certainty is incredibly dangerous business.”

“I promise I am not meddling in it, mother,” he tries to reassure her without actually telling her anything.

She still looks skeptical, but doesn’t press him on it.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

“Have you figured out how I got here?” Darcy asks curiously, but also a little slowly. She’s still getting used to using Allspeak all the time, even nearly three months - moons, crap, she still defaults to Midgard terminology - since she started living with Loki.

He’d started running magical tests on her after a couple weeks, and he has continued to run them regularly. Today is a day that he’s doing them, before dinner and again after, when they usually sit and do something together. Like sewing. He’d just finished the after dinner batch and is looking down at his notes thoughtfully.

“I believe so,” he says, not necessarily sounding happy about it. “I’ve no basis for comparison, though. All I can do is monitor and document the changes in you, and theorize.”

She had ultimately ended up telling him about how her body had changed after moving up here, and about the not-eating thing before, breaking the news after the first round of diagnostics. He hadn’t been thrilled she kept it from him previous that, and he had run more tests to measure against future ones to keep an eye on how her body is changing.

After another moment of him flipping back and forth between pages in his journal, she softly asks, “I don’t have the option of going back anymore, do I?”

This pulls his attention fully to her, and his face softens. “I... don’t think that would be wise.” he confirms. Taking pity, he finally explains what he thinks happened. “For all that learning magical theory and practicing it can expand our abilities, it also limits us in some ways. I suspect that, when you wished yourself here the first time, your naive magic, uninhibited by any of the rules you are learning now, simply did what you wanted, not knowing that there are certain limitations. It brought your life essence to a place of strong magic by way of astral projection, and, because you had no concept of existing without a physical body as most people would whilst astral projecting, your magic then simply created you one. As you know, practice with a task makes it so you hardly have to think about it or put in any effort after some time, so, when you were attacked, your magic instinctively protected you by removing you from the situation - in the way it was accustomed to.”

That makes sense. 

“I believe you were initially stuck in Asgard due to your original body being injured from the attack. Your magic knew that this body was, essentially, perfectly healthy and safe to inhabit, whilst that one was not, so it refused to take you back to that one.” he’s watching her carefully to gauge her reaction.

Darcy doesn’t know how she feels. But she knows where this line of logic is heading. “My original body’s dead, isn’t it?”

“Most likely.” he confirms, sounding sad. “Seriously injured, and without your life essence or magic to encourage it to heal... it would not have lasted long.”

She’ll have to figure out what she feels about that later. It’s all too mixed up right now. Now she wants more information. “And what about this body? Did I not need to eat at first because it was made from magic?”

“Probably.” Loki moves to sit next to her on the sofa, flipping back in his journal to the first time he ran tests on her, showing her his findings and explaining them. She has to give him props for never trying to baby her. He’s of the mindset that it’s better for her to have accurate information, and this is something she really has a right to know about. She just hasn’t asked before now. “This number, here, represents the magical saturation in your tissues. It was extremely high to begin with, which is why I think this body was originally a magical construct.” flipping through and pointing out the same measurement for each occasion, he goes on, “And it is steadily coming down the longer you are eating and exercising and such. It is currently at a saturation level not dissimilar to what a very gifted Aesir mage would have, and I have now gotten nearly the same reading for it two weeks consecutively. It appears to be reaching an equilibrium.” 

“Wait, so my magic made me an Aesir body?” she asks, shocked. “Shouldn’t it have made the body I was familiar with?”

“It may have done so. Or at least the nearest it could.” he patiently explains. “Magic has no concept of things like biology. It is energy. Semi-sentient energy, yes, but still just energy. My best hypothesis is that it made a facsimile of your original body with no particular biology associated. But, since the facsimile could not, by nature, be self-sustaining, nor did it have any concept of biological necessities like eating, it would have pulled ambient energy from your surroundings to keep powering it.”

“And since the magic surrounding me had an Aesir origin, that’s what it became?” she guesses the next part.

“In a way. It may have predisposed your tissue to processing energy as the Aesir do, as it was surviving off of Aesir-origin energy for such a length of time. Then, when you came to me and began performing biological necessities the typical way, it continued to process the different energy source in the Aesir way.”

“Because that’s what it had been practicing doing constantly for months.” she interrupts, beginning to understand.

“Yes,” Loki confirms.

Darcy just sits and absorbs this new information for awhile, and Loki lets her, sitting quietly next to her and going back to comparing his notes while she processes.

Eventually, another thought strikes her. “Am I ever going to be able to leave these rooms?” she asks morosely. Man, if she was a freak back on Midgard, what does this make her here?

“Yes,” he assures her confidently. “It will be some time yet, but once we have ascertained that you are, indeed, physically maturing along at least a similar time frame to an Aesir, and I have taught you all the things that most Aesir children your age would know so as not to draw attention to you, then it will be perfectly safe for you to join Asgard properly.”

“So how old am I supposed to be, exactly?” her face scrunches at the question. She still only feels 8-and-a-half.

“Well, you are approximately two-thirds of the way through you childhood in Midgardian terms, so that would make you between five and six hundred years old.” he tells her after some quick calculations.

“I have 550 years of stuff to catch up on?!” she despairs.

This makes Loki laugh, and the tension subsides a bit as he closes the journal. “No. You won’t have had occasion to truly see, but life here moves much slower than you are accustomed to. I had to remind myself when you first came to live here that you still think like a Midgardian. Midgardians have to move their lives along quickly, because they haven’t time to do anything else. They grow quickly and learn quickly. And so, having been raised with this way of life, you will likely find life in Asgard rather boring and tedious. At least initially. Our children often don’t even begin walking until they are near or past their first century. You have already mastered many of the things most children learn through their first 300 or so years - bathing and clothing themselves, basic table manners, the rudiments of reading and writing. You have far surpassed any children of comparable maturity in most of your studies already. You would be hard pressed to find a 600-year-old working any magic, much less on their way to mastering complex illusions.”

Giving it another thought, Darcy surmises, “So, basically I just need to learn the random daily stuff? And how to speak like an Asgardian?”

“To simply pass as an Asgardian, yes.” he confirms, then qualifies, “To be appropriately presented as my apprentice, we still have much work to do perfecting your comportment. If you recall my initial offer of apprenticeship, I did warn you there would be more expectations due to my station.”

He sees her downtrodden look and tries to reassure her. “There is a reason I have not discouraged you from that industrious Midgardian mindset, Darcy.” This makes her look up at him curiously. “Your advantage is and always will be that quick mind of yours. You learn quickly, and you do not shy away from working hard to achieve a goal. When I realized that you were completing the tasks that I gave you for the day in less than the time between breaking your fast and the midday meal, I gave you more tasks, yes?” she nods. “Because you can handle it. You are used to spending most of your time occupied. Asgardian children often have only a few small tasks a day, which they complete at a leisurely pace, and spend quite a bit of time simply at play. It’s why hobbies like embroidery and weaving and such are so common - they are slow tasks to eat up the copious amount of time we have. But I don’t believe you will ever be content to move at the Asgardian pace. At least not for a very long time.”

She doesn’t know what to make of that as he concludes, “I am confident it will not take you long to master what you need to, and that you have the wit to hide shortcomings in my teaching.”

Darcy’s got so many emotions running through her right now that all she can really feel is exhausted. So, she does something she hasn’t since being in Asgard. Except once for a practical purpose.

Scootching closer to Loki, she pulls his arm away from his body and up a bit as he cooperates and looks down at her curiously. When she has access, she scootches closer still and wraps her arms around his waist, curling her legs up and leaning into his side. He’s still for a moment, obviously not having expected this. But he also doesn’t seem to mind, as he pulls out of his surprise and settles his arm on her back, returning the cuddle without protest.


	8. Chapter 8

Excited for the day to commence, Darcy pulls on her light blue dress. It’s the most recent and, subsequently, the best of the four attempts they’ve made at making her dresses, each taking about a month as they went slowly, working on it together in the evenings. The first two, they had had to rip out the stitching and re-purpose the fabric because they were so bad. She had taken that opportunity to use the thick, cotton-like fabric to make pajamas she’s more comfortable in, introducing Loki to the concept, which he had immediately taken to. Apparently he used to sleep naked but had gone back to night shirts with her living there. He likes the alternative of loose-fitting pants instead, allowing him to remain appropriately modest without fabric getting twisted uncomfortably around his torso in his sleep. So, some of the fabric he’d bought for her had been reassigned to make himself pj pants.

Half the time in the evenings, he’ll change as soon as dinner - sigh... evening meal - is done and spend their ‘relaxing’ time in those and a tunic. Darcy wonders what he would think of proper sweatpants with the cozy, soft material, or real flannel pjs. Or, geeze, a hoodie...

She thinks he might never wear proper clothes again if she got him into some of those. The man LOVES his comfy clothes.

Anyway, the last two dresses have been decent (well... one *wearable*, the other decent....), Loki declaring this blue one very close to those that young girls wear often in the cold months, it being in a thick, cushy material that she isn’t even sure of an Earth comparison for. But it’s warm and soft. She’s been practicing her Allspeak as well, and he’d declared her proficient enough to not draw more attention than the fact that she’s using Allspeak at all, should anyone notice, and surprised her by announcing she would be coming with him to run some errands in the city today.

So, she’d been presented a scuffed pair of brown boots just a little too big for her still that he’d dug from some corner of his family’s storage that he’d forgotten about previously, and told her to wear breeches under a dress so she doesn’t get too cold.

It is, after all, a solid moon into the cold season. One of the tasks she had elected to take on herself is sweeping the snow off their balcony each day, so she isn’t sure how much there is everywhere else, but she remembers this time last year; there’d been snow piled up to her thighs on THAT balcony at one point. Not that she minds snow. She’s VERY used to it in the winter. Cold season. Dangit.

She’s getting a lot better about using Asgardian terminology, but if she isn’t careful she still goes with English words for some stuff. Most of the time it’s just in her head that she trips up with it, though.

Having already figured out how many fabric scraps she needs to tuck into the toes of the boots so they’re comfortable enough to walk in, she sits and wraps her breeches tighter around her ankles and carefully slides her feet into the stiff leather. They’re much more structured than the soft slipper-like shoes Loki had made for her to wear around the rooms. But, he said they’re also much more waterproof, which is important for spending more than a few minutes at a time out in the snow.

Darcy isn’t looking forward to wearing them (she actually HATES the feeling of shoes on her feet after not wearing any for almost a year; she only even wears the slippers when she’s going out to sweep the snow from the balcony) but they’re a non-negotiable aspect of him taking her out, so she hadn’t fussed about it. Plus, she doesn’t want to find out if frostbite would be a thing in her new body.

Her final stop is to check her hair - which Loki had spent some time last night putting into a pretty style with a few different braids to keep it off her face - and smooth down any bits that are sticking out, before grabbing her cloak and putting it on. It reminds her more of the sweaters her nana wears mixed with a longer actual jacket. This one is black, another hand-me-down from Loki’s childhood, but it fits perfectly for once. Likely because it’s meant to be a bit loose, and it ties closed so it’s adjustable. But still. This fabric is thick but not as soft as most fabric she’s used to here. She thinks it’s from some animal hair or other, because it’s just a little scratchy, like her dad’s wool coat.

Ready, she emerges from her rooms to find Loki waiting for her, sitting on a chair.

After running his eyes over her quickly, he seems to find her attired to his satisfaction and stands to meet her by the front door. “I shall be altering our appearances to avoid notice.” he reminds her, having told her last night already. “You will require less alteration than I. Hair and eye color should be sufficient.”

Once she nods that she understands, he reaches forward and runs his finger softly over one of the braids he’d done, and she feels the minty tingling of his magic covering her scalp and the top half of her face.

When he’s done, she pulls a chunk of hair to where she can see it and finds it a golden-blonde color. 

Then she looks back up just in time to watch him change himself. His shoulders and arms get a bigger, his hair goes the same color of blond, and his eyes turn a light blue that she assumes are the same as what he made hers. It’s a little disturbing to watch his face shape shift, cheekbones pulling in and down to be less noticeable, the shape of his nose going shorter and wider, his jaw becoming more prominent and rapidly acquiring a coating of facial hair that’s a bit darker than his other hair.

After that, his clothes shift to look a little less high-quality. Still nice, but not, like, PRINCE nice. The colors of those change as well, black switching to various shades of brown and green to blue a little darker than her dress.

“How do I look?” he asks her with a smile when he’s done.

Shrugging, she says only, “Not like you.”

“My goal has been achieved.” he declares lightly, then gets down on a knee and gestures her forward. “You remember how it felt last time I transported us?”

Darcy nods as she steps forward, much more comfortable this time. After that first time she initiated a cuddle for comfort, they hadn’t exactly become super affectionate with each other, but she’s no longer hesitant to go to him when she wants a hug, either. He always readily returns her affection, so she’s pretty sure he’s fine with it. So, they’re both generally more comfortable than last time they’d done this.

As soon as she’s wrapped securely in one of his arms, the crushing of his magic descends, for a little longer this time, but not by much, then they’re reappearing on some kind of building entranceway. She lands facing a heavy-looking wood door, in a short hallway or something. A glance as she steps back to give Loki room to stand again tells her it’s open street behind her.

The street is quiet, and she doesn’t see anyone as they step out and she looks each way curiously.

“This section of this road is mostly workshops for smiths and leatherworkers. Few begin their work for the day this early. A good place and time to simply appear from nowhere and not be seen.” he explains quietly, leading her toward an intersection with a bigger-looking road, which DOES have people walking down it, unlike the one they’re on.

“Early?” she questions skeptically. He’d come back from training a little earlier than normal for this, but not by much. It will be midday soon.

He chuckles and keeps explaining. “After they break fast, many spend some time gathering orders from the morning markets, or any supplies they might need, or delivering anything they completed the day before. Unless they don’t happen to need to do these things, they won’t generally be in their workshops until after midday meal.”

As they merge with the foot-traffic on the bigger road, Darcy looks around curiously. She can feel brick or something under the layer of slush they’re walking in, and she already knows her bottom hem is going to be grubby quickly. It’s not low enough to be dragging, but it goes to her ankles, so it has to be getting splashed and hitting her boots as she walks. The street is pretty bare except the slush, but at the edges where people don’t walk, there’s snow banked against the sides of the buildings.

Most of the buildings are two-story, but there’s taller ones or single-floor ones dotted around enough that it doesn’t all look the same. Most have carved and painted motifs on the doors, indicating a name and some indication of what they sell. The inns have tankards of what she assumes is ale, and beds; one she spots has colorful fruit in a jar-like shape that she assumes means it’s a jam shop or something; another has a needle and balls of thread, which must be a fabric shop or something along those lines. The names don’t make much sense to her, and she wonders if it’s cultural references she just doesn’t get or if they just don’t really translate even in Allspeak.

The first shop Loki steers her into has an illustration of hanging bundles of plants on it. And, as she steps in behind him, she immediately sees why. Because there’s bundles of plants hanging from the high ceiling. Spotting a familiar-looking leaf, she realizes they’re probably herbs. The one she sees is one that Loki keeps in one of the larger plant pots in his rooms.

There’s a few other people in the rather large shop, but only one isn’t wearing outerwear, and she assumes that’s the shopkeeper. It’s confirmed as the woman moves off to a table in the back corner and starts wrapping a few bunches of things in paper, then hands it to someone in exchange for a few coins.

In addition to the hanging dried herbs, there’s shelves lining the walls full of jars and wood boxes of varying size, and little fabric bags, all bearing some sort of label, probably describing the contents. In groups around the open floor are barrels, also labelled, that have hinged tops.

Loki stops next to one of these, then reaches into his shoulder-bag and pulls out a familiar jar, opening the lid of the barrel to release a waft of a familiar aroma, and beginning to fill it with scoops of her favorite tea mixture, saying, “I’m of a mind to get a second jar, you’ve been drinking so much of this.” in a light tone. When he closes the lid, she notices that the carving on it matches the label on the jar.

“I wouldn’t mind,” she says back with a grin. Indeed, she’s been drinking three or four cups of the stuff a day since it got cold out. It’s spicy and warm and comforting.

He doesn’t get a second one of that, but he does allow her to open and sniff most of the barrells and buy a small fabric satchel of some other blend that she thinks smells delicious for her to try. As they approach the rear of the shop, he hands her the jar and satchel to hold and pulls out another familiar thing; the box that contains some sweet powder that they both take a pinch of in their tea. He must’ve emptied out the remains of what was in there to fill as long as they’re here. It HAD been getting a bit low.

Once that’s full, they move over to the table in the corner, where the woman is cleaning up the table from where it looks like something had spilled.

“Good day,” Loki gets her attention, and she looks up with a smile to return the greeting.

After short pleasantries, their purchases are tallied quickly and Loki sets the box down to pull out his coin purse from his pocket and counts out the appropriate number to hand over. Once he receives a few smaller ones back, their purchases go into his bag and they make for the door, the shopkeeper having already been distracted with a question from someone else.

They’re quiet, Loki seeing that she’s occupied just looking around as they walk. Soon, they emerge into an open square that has quite a few people milling about, and covered but otherwise open mini-shops in rows around each edge.

Each one has a little sign hanging from the roof at the front similar to the shop doors. She doesn’t recognize the symbols on the one Loki heads for, but it’s full of small metal goods. Lots of sewing supplies, she notices immediately, as well as some other stuff.

The person minding the stall is bundled up against the cold and greets them cheerfully. “Good day! Are you after anything in particular?”

Loki smiles at the man and sets his hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “About time for a set of embroidery needles, I think. She’s been practicing with the spare sewing needles for some time.” She had. Loki knows very little about embroidery - even less than he did about sewing - but he had managed to find her a thin book of patterns that has diagrams, so she’s been teaching herself with the scraps of fabric from their sewing adventures. She’s not very good yet, but he’d mentioned that she’ll have to learn if she wants anything other than plain fabric for her clothing.

Apparently it’s something that nearly every woman does as a pass-time, so she’ll be expected to learn regardless. She just doesn’t have the benefit of a mother or grandmother teaching her, so she’s been making do.

“Ah! Wonderful!” the man exclaims, turning to a counter along the back of the stall and rummaging for a moment. “Will you be needing a frame as well? I have some here I just finished a few days ago. Nice hard wood, and sturdy fastenings. They’ll last her into adulthood, at least, long as she’s not too hard on them.”

“Oh, why not?” Loki answers agreeably, already pulling out his coin purse.

In short order, a little paper envelope and a round wooden contraption are being added to his bag and they make their way on, down a different road out of the market. They don’t go far, entering a shop only a few down from the market entrance, which has a bathtub carved into the door.

It’s full of shelves and tables packed with jars and tubs of bathing products, and Darcy’s head is swivelling all over trying to look at everything. There’s only one other customer at the moment, and the shopkeeper, so they’re greeted right away, which Loki returns without Darcy even really hearing at this point. He walks directly over to a particular section that all has very similar labels, the same stamp on each one with a description.

As he selects a few items, he sees Darcy reading curiously and reaches over to tap a little vial with a cork in it, saying, “Go ahead and start finding one you like.”

She immediately grins up at him. She gets to pick her own soap and stuff! He laughs a little at her enthusiasm as she reaches for the vial he’d indicated and pulls out the cork before bringing it to her nose. It’s a smell she knows well; the scent he uses on a daily basis.

Closing it again, she puts it back and immediately notices that each section has these vials for every scent on display and works her way down the row of shelves, sniffing each one.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

“Her first time picking her own?” the woman minding the shop guesses, sounding amused, as Loki sets his selections down on the clear table in the corner and begins pulling empty jars from his bag to return.

Smiling, Loki glances back at Darcy and confirms, “Yes. She’s been using plain up to now, but she’ll be 600 soon...”

“Great age, that,” The woman says fondly as they both watch the girl walking around the shop, systematically sniffing every option. “Enjoy it. Before you know it, they’re off at apprenticeships and think coming home for a meal with their family is the most boring thing in the realm.”

“Oh, yes, I remember that time.” he reminisces. “My brother and I are uncommonly close in age, so my poor mother had both of us wandering about on adventures at the same time.”

“You came back though,” she assumes before they’re interrupted by Darcy letting out a loud sneeze at something she sniffed. They both chuckle as the girl makes a displeased face and hurries to put that vial back.

“Yes, we both came back, and see her nearly every day again. By times I wonder if she realizes we are grown, with all she fusses.” he continues.

The woman lets out a sigh and tells him, “They’re always your little baby, no matter how old they get.”

Darcy has made it through about half the shop before she turns and heads back nearly to where she’d started with him, picking up two different options that are near each other, one of which is made by the same craftsperson that he prefers. After opening both vials, she goes back and forth between them with a contemplative expression, undecided.

“You can get them both,” he calls when she still hasn’t picked one or the other after several moments.

“Really?” she asks excitedly.

“Yes. You’ll have to use both of them fully before you can come back and see if there are others you like more,” he cautions, stepping over to get a full range from each option.

“That’s okay.” Darcy says, carefully holding bottles that he hands her between her arms and torso. “I like them together. I was trying to decide which I like more without the other.”

“Were you just not finding any you liked more and decided to stop looking?” he questions as he takes the jars of creams and they move toward the table together, the shopkeeper already marking down their long list of selections.

“My head started hurting,” Darcy replies in a disappointed tone.

“Well, we shall have to return when you are running low for you to see if there are any in those you didn’t get to that you wish to try out.” he says placatingly. “The shop has been here longer than I have been alive, I don’t believe it shall disappear before you need more cleansing oils.” He pulls his coinpurse out and sets it on the table before beginning to pack their purchases away. “Count out the coin when the tally is done,” he tells Darcy. She’s never actually handled their currency, though he had taught her the relative value of the four different coins used on Asgard.

The shopkeep smilingly quotes the figure due, and they both watch as Darcy pulls open the mouth of the bag and carefully extracts four gold bits and five silver and hands them over. She’s handed a nickel and two copper in return, which she drops into the bag before drawing the string closed and handing it back to him to pocket again.

Good days are said as they leave, and he leads her to a spinning shop around a corner and up a ways.

It’s an apprentice that greets them as she comes out from the back room when she hears the door, looking harried, as though she’s been rushing to do something, so he just asks where they keep the embroidery threads and is pointed in the right direction. He points out the thicker material that will be better - and less expensive - for Darcy to use as she learns, then has to stop her from getting all shades of purple.

Limited to three shades of purple, she purses her lips and selects three greens as well, making him smile, and two each of blue, red, pink, orange, and yellow, then, at the last moment, reaching for a black and an off-white to add to the substantial pile of balls of thread. He’d kept her to the second smallest option so she could get a range but also not run out too soon. Four of the little bundles fit in his palm at once, and, just to amuse her, he starts juggling them all, getting a giggle for his effort as they turn to go pay.

The apprentice is less amused even as he sets them one by one on the table for her to count the tally. She’s clearly having a bad day.

So, they make a quick exit from there as soon as they can and Loki leads Darcy to their final destination - a confectionary. She, surprisingly for a child, doesn’t have particular fondness for sweets. Her favorite of the selection he got some time ago are bits of a dried, tart, fairly acidic fruit coated with some spices and a thin layer of powdered sweet nectar. Even still, she often only wants one or two at a time, and frequently doesn’t even eat them more than a day in a row.

In short, his supply of sweets has lasted some time, as he’d stocked up anticipating a child who loves them.

By the time he’s purchased a few packets of her favorite and a few of his own - a spicy boiled sweet - it’s well past midday and he decides against heading directly back to the palace. Instead, he leads Darcy into one of the bigger inns in the area and navigates them to a free section of table near the fire. Most have eaten already by now, so the seats are thankfully plentiful.

Once Darcy is settled, he moves to the bar to pay for some food and drink.

Going back to the table, he answers Darcy’s questions about things she’d not understood about shops, and made note to ask about shops as she’s used to them being on Midgard when they get back to privacy. It’s not long before cups of warm mead and plates of food are set before each of them, and he thanks the innkeeper.

He has to hold back his smile as the young girl tucks excitedly into her food. He can’t recall if he and Thor at that age were ever so enthusiastic about a simple plate of roasted meat and boiled veg with a hunk of bread. Granted, he reminds himself, they never went nine moons without eating. 

And, though her body had somehow sustained itself on ambient energy, she had obviously still missed eating. She approaches most meals with appreciative gusto, and has enjoyed learning how to cook for herself quite a lot.

It’s as he’s debating whether to transport them back directly or take her on a walk through a bit more of the city that it happens. The door to the inn bangs open and a group of loud, rowdy soldiers pile in, one booming voice standing out before they are even fully through the entranceway. Immediately, he pulls his magic inward even further than he usually has it in public in an effort to avoid detection. Hel. It must be later in the day than he realized.

Darcy senses the withdrawl and looks up at him before scrunching her brow and doing the same, much slower. She’s not had practice, but obviously feels she should do the same as he, even if she doesn’t know why they’re doing it.

With a glance, Loki sees the innkeeper trying to maintain a neutral and welcoming facade and hide his annoyance.

Ah. This must be the latest in the rotation of inns that Thor and his hooligans cycle through. They’ll go to one particular inn for a few weeks or a moon at a time until someone in the party - usually Hogun or Sif - notices that their near-daily antics have worn their welcome thin, then the group will switch to a different inn. Then the cycle will repeat.

It has been many years since Loki could be bothered to join them. He has much better uses for his time than drinking ale and talking of nothing until the hour grows late enough to try and find a bedpartner. In fact, he hardly interacts with any of them at all these days, generally only at training, and even then not often.

Loki is more inclined to do his training with the palace guards, who are very to-business about it. None of them have the lust for war. They’re there to keep their skills sharp to perform their duties, and that is all. Loki appreciates the focused atmosphere much more than the bawdy and rowdy soldiers that cling to Thor’s shadow, attempting to catch his favor. 

The only time he might see them on a regular basis is the midday meal. They break their fast in the soldier’s dining hall while he prefers to eat in his rooms, and he rarely attends evening meal in the royal dining hall to even know if they are in attendance. On the occasions that the group does dine in the upper hall for midday, they aren’t near him. He’s at high table with his parents, while Thor sits at a lower table to stay with his friends.

And now he has inadvertently run into them on an occasion that it would truly be horrendous if they noticed him.

While he’s been gathering himself, Darcy has begun casting irritated looks at the loud and boisterous group that’s settling on the other side of the hearth as she continues to eat, chewing her veg roughly in her irritation. He resists smiling, wondering if it is because they’re being disruptive or because it’s easy enough to puzzle out that they’re what caused him to have a reaction.

After some time, the innkeeper emerges, hands full of tankards of ale, which he deposits in the middle of the table the group is at. A tingle of Darcy’s sweet-tart, zesty-fruit magic zips past him, making his brow raise immediately.

It takes only a heartbeat to discover what she did.

“What-?” Volstagg exclaims, making Loki’s eyes dart over to find that none of them appear able to lift their tankards from the table.

Schooling his face, Loki continues eating, silently urging Darcy to do the same.

The irate exclamations continue for a long moment, and he hears at least two chairs scrape the floor as some of the group stand. Just after this, loud thuds and a ruckus of surprised shouts make him look over again. From what he can tell, Volstagg and Fandral had stood to attempt to pry up the tankards, only for the tankards to come loose unexpectedly, causing nearly the whole group, even those sitting, to empty the contents over themselves.

He knows he’s not convincing in the slightest as he attempts to shoot Darcy a chastizing look. He’s too amused to pull it off.

She shrugs minutely and quietly says, “They’re rude.” between bites of her food.

Loki has no response for that. They ARE rude. And he’s done much worse than douse them in ale for it many times before, so he has no firm moral ground to stand on to try and tell her off for it.

“If I knew not any better, I would swear Loki were here.” Fandral’s sentence emerges from the din of disgruntled warriors as they attempt to wipe away the ale with whatever bit of fabric they have to hand. He still doesn’t react, just keeps eating, but he does pay a bit more attention to the goings-on nearby.

Sif scoffs a rebuttal. “If Loki were here, he would have conjured snakes in our tankards just before we drank.”

A gleam enters Darcy’s eyes, and he knows she’s filing that away for a future time.

“Or stuck our mouths to the tankards,” Hogun agrees with her.

“Or both.” Thor concludes, surprisingly quiet as he grumbles and throws his soiled tunic over the back of an empty chair directly in front of the fire.

“In any case, he hardly seems to leave his rooms anymore once his duties for the day are complete,” Volstagg comments. “Does he labor away at some academic nonsense or has he simply forsworn fun in its entirety?”

This makes Darcy scowl harder and shoot another irritated look in the group’s direction. Loki looks discreetly as well and sees that Hogun is looking over at them interestedly, probably having seen Darcy’s look. They need to go.

Shoving the last bite of meat into his mouth, he looks questioningly down at his charge, looking between her plate and her face. She sighs and splits her previously untouched bread, beginning to pile her remaining meat in the middle, and Loki swigs back the remains of his warm mead. Waiting for Darcy to do the same with hers, they’re soon standing and donning the cloaks they’d shed upon arriving. Darcy spares another dark look for the other occupied table as she picks up her bread and meat before following him out of the inn. Outside, he finds the thin, cold-season sun beginning to set, confirming it’s later than he thought. Evening meal won’t be properly beginning as yet, but it would not be far off.

He leads her only to a quiet alleyway nearby before he kneels, then they’re back in their chambers.

“Well, aside from the late interruption to it, how did you enjoy your first visit to the city?” Loki questions as he stands and moves to begin unloading their haul for the day onto his table to sort out.

“It was fun,” she says happily, moving to fetch one of his spare bags from where he keeps them in a cabinet near the door. “Who were those people? I only recognized Thor because of his voice.”

Loki frowns slightly, watching as she begins loading most of the things into the other bag to take into her rooms, as most of it is for her anyhow. “When have you heard Thor before?”

“The first time you came to my closet.” she says easily. “He was chasing you, and you hid in there.”

Thinking back, he remembers the time he’d first noticed a child in the room and his frown turns to a grin. He’d just gotten back from an ambassadorial journey at his mother’s behest, and his first order of business upon arriving home had been to cast an illusion over Fandral’s face to make him think the skin was saggy and wrinkled. He’d been discovered immediately, and fled from Thor and Fandral.

“Ah,” he acknowledges. “The three other men are Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg. The woman with them is Sif.”

“Oh,” Darcy says in understanding. He’s told her stories; she needs no other context.

Realizing they’re both still in disguise, Loki shifts back to his usual shape, making Darcy look up. She really is incredibly sensitive to magic. She can always feel it when she’s anywhere remotely near him, no matter how small a thing he does. Like just pulling it inwards at the inn.

Releasing the magic on her as well, he urges, “Put your things away and select something to pass the time before we are to bed.”

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

Yawning widely, Darcy moves to listen at the door to make sure Loki’s asleep.

Hearing nothing but a single pop from the log she knows will still be burning in the big fireplace, she steps back and examines the crack under the door. All she sees is the very slight flickering of the fire in the otherwise dark space.

She’ll just have to hope he’s not up reading by firelight or something.

Tomorrow’s his birthday. Or, probably by now, it’s the very early hours of his birthday. Asgardians don’t really do, like, clocks and stuff, so she can’t be sure.

He’d said that it would be a mostly normal day, with him going to training in the morning, but he’d be spending the time between midday meal and evening meal with his mother and possibly brother, and he would be expected to have the evening meal with them today. He’d said it apologetically, like every time since she moved in that he wouldn’t be eating the late meal here with her.

Darcy doesn’t mind. She understands that he has responsibilities and stuff, and hardly expects him to ditch his family’s traditions for her. Plus, today in particular, it gives her more time to work on her present for him.

She’d actually technically started preparing for this day over two moons ago, asking him to get her baking supplies and spices and a recipe book if he could find one, because she wants to try and recreate some of her favorite treats from Midgard. Or, as close as possible at least. So, he had appeared from the following grocery trip with flour, a coarser version of the sweetening powder that goes in their tea, yeast, spices, dried fruits, eggs, a big jar of solid oil that comes from the same plant as the sweetener, and a sheaf of papers that he’d made copies of from the kitchens. They’re recipes for the various baked goods that are made in the palace. And he’d warned her to copy them down within a day because the magical copies wouldn’t last long.

She’d done so, then happily set about figuring out how to use this stuff versus how she remembers baking with her nana.

Nana’s Christmas cookies, in particular.

Darcy used to help with them, and Nana made a lot to give to friends and neighbors and make sure the whole family took some home from the big family Christmas dinner. So Darcy definitely remembers how to make them. At least, the Midgardian way.

While baking is a thing on Asgard, baking soda and baking powder most certainly are not. Or molasses. And the spices taste different, so she’d had to mix and match to get a close approximation of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. The oil is a little sour, too, which was a weird problem to try and fix because she needs a fair amount of it to get the cookies close to the right texture while using yeast instead of baking powder and soda.

Basically, it’s been a long couple months of a lot of bad batches and asking Loki for refills of things. But she’d done it. She’d gotten close. And taught herself to make bread along the way from one of the recipes, but that’s not important right now. She got close.

Not that she won’t continue to improve on it, but it’s close enough for this.

Namely, Loki’s birthday. 

His favorite sweets are a hard candy made with a bunch of spices. She doesn’t know exactly which, but the first time she’d tried one, she’d thought it was a hard candy version of her nana’s Christmas cookies. So, she thinks he’d really like the cookies. It’s mostly the same taste, but in cookie form.

Thing being, the whole recipe has some somewhat sensitive timing. If she starts making the dough too soon before baking, they won’t rise and they’ll be really hard. But if she makes it too long before baking, there’ll be big holes and it will be more like bread.

Hence her staying up until approximately the middle of the night.

It’s still pretty cool at night, just coming out of the cold season, and she intentionally let her fire burn out yesterday. If she times it right, she can have the dough done and resting in front of an open window before he gets up to eat his breakfast and go to training, so he won’t hear her moving around and come find out why she’s up so early. The colder temperature will make the yeast move slower, and she can build her fire as soon as she’s heard him leave for the day and the dough will be ready to get portioned out to begin rising around the time she’s usually done with her morning exercises.

She’s done a run-through three times over the past week to get it all right. She’s determined. And that isn’t even all she’s doing.

Not that her present for him is all that impressive, but it had taken her a looooong time. Like, rushing through her assignments to have time to work on it before she gets called out for dinner and pausing to do different parts of the baking experiments kind of time. And figuring out how to permanently alter colors of things (without asking questions or for help) because she was way short on the right shade of green thread sort of time. She actually still has a little bit to finish today, but she knows she’ll have plenty of time, especially with him eating din... evening meal with his family.

Despite the only light being from what’s spilling out of her bedroom, her hands are so used to the process now that she hardly has to think about it. Most of her effort goes into not making any unnecessary noise.

It still takes awhile though. The process requires quite a bit of waiting between steps.

But, she makes it. Barely. Just as she’s settling the cloth-covered bowl of dough in front of the open window, but behind the racks of little glass tubes with plant cuttings growing in them, she sees the light change in the tiny, high-up window on the opposite side of the balcony, indicating he’s up and had just gone into his bathroom. She only has a few minutes.

Hurriedly making sure nothing is likely to tip over unexpectedly, Darcy goes quickly back into her bedroom and shuts the door most of the way, leaving only a small gap to look out of, and turning the lights off for good measure. Just in case he happens to actually go out onto the balcony for some reason. It’s not likely, but that’s why it’s ‘just in case’. This whole thing is about surprising him; the plan would definitely be given up if he glanced in and saw her bedroom light on and decided to investigate.

She’s horrible at pretending to be asleep. She’d tried many times with her parents, and never got away with it once. He’s not going to fall for it either.

Watching through the slightly-open bedroom door, she sees the light go on in his main room under her door to it, and she can JUSSST hear him moving about to get himself his usual breakfast of some cheese and fruit while he waits for water to boil to make his morning cup of tea. Listening for any sign of something out of the ordinary, Darcy makes a mental list of all she needs to do today and waits.

*p*a*g*e*b*r*e*a*k*

“What in the Nine have you been getting up to locked away in your quarters these past seasons?” Thor asks him as the family start serving themselves from the spread that had been lain out on the dining table in their parents’ quarters. “I feel as though I see you naught but fleetingly at morning training, and in council meetings.”

Loki refrains from commenting on it being amazing Thor notices ANYTHING at council meetings. His brother looks as though he’s about to fall asleep through any given one of them.

He comments on another of Thor’s failings instead. “A bit hypocritical, given you are hardly in the palace at all but for those same times. At the least, I am discreet about my fun, rather than cycling through different inns and making ruckus until my welcome is in tatters.”

This makes Thor scowl at him, but any retort is cut off by a disappointed sigh from their mother, which silences the both of them. Odin continues eating as though he hadn’t heard a word, obviously not willing to risk Frigga’s ire by taking either or both of them to task for their behavior in the middle of one of the very few meals a year that they have in private, as a family.

“Even so, Loki, his question is valid. What ARE you occupying your time with these days?” Frigga diverts the conversation away from an argument. “Surely you are not still dwelling on that hypothetical you spoke to me of in the harvest season.”

And so she directs things for the entirety of the meal, asking each of them questions in turn and drawing out information in that way that only a mother can, Loki being certain to not lie at all whilst still participating.

Frigga can ALWAYS tell when he’s lying.

Later than he’d have liked, Loki makes his way back to his own quarters, carrying a bottle of his favorite spirits and a new scabbard to house his throwing daggers. Obviously someone had noticed his is getting rather worn. He’d specifically put off getting a new one knowing his parents would likely gift him one today.

As usual, he slips into his rooms and shuts the door immediately after himself, shoulders sagging as he relaxes.

Darcy’s baking again, he notes, smelling the now-familiar aroma of warm spices lingering. He hasn’t made it halfway across the room to store the spirits in a cabinet before her door is opening. “Making progress on recreating your treats?” he asks fondly, continuing his task.

“Yes. They aren’t perfect yet,” she answers, and he hears her padding toward her favorite sofa directly across from the fire. “But it’s our tradition to bake a person’s favorite treat on their natality, and since I don’t know yours, I thought I would make you my favorite cookies instead, since they taste a bit like your favorite sweets.”

An unexpected warmth blooms in his chest as Loki turns to find her setting a plate piled with discs of baked dough onto the low table between the sofa and the hearth, at the end closest to his favorite chair. The small smile he’d sported since arriving and smelling the treats spreads into a full one as he carelessly swings the cabinet door shut and drops the fresh leather onto a nearby table to worry about later before moving quickly back to sit with her.

It’s only then he notices a jug and two cups on the side table between the sofa and chair, which she must have placed there anticipating his arrival.

She carefully pours each of them a glass of whatever she has filled the jug with even as she explains. “And we usually eat them with a particular, warm, spiced fruit juice. But it’s not cold enough outside anymore to really enjoy that, so I made the closest I could to a cool version instead.”

“Darcy, this is very kind,” he starts, before adding, “But you needn’t have gone to such trouble.” He keeps a couple casks of fruit juice mostly for her, and there’s plenty of fruit on their preservation shelves to last until the first berries and such begin ripening, but it still must’ve been an incredible amount of work to squeeze and customize a special beverage. Not to discount the large amount of time spent working on the treats - cookies, she called them? - which he now suspects was because she had been planning on making them for him today all along.

“But I wanted to,” she insists happily, setting the jug back down and finally settling in her typical place next to what he thinks will be her project for the evening. “Besides, it was fun. And a good challenge.

“Well, I am very thankful,” he acedes, leaning forward to pick up one of the cookies, finding it rather light. He’s conscious of her watching him for a reaction, and he’s happy when he doesn’t need to fake enjoying it. As she said, it tastes very like his favorite sweets, but in a soft, baked dough. “Oh, that is delicious!”

Darcy looks a little relieved and reaches for one herself. “Thank you. I helped my grandmother make them for our winter holiday celebration every year.”

“Well, I look forward to your continued efforts to improve them, if this is an imperfect version,” he says lightly, pausing after the first one to try the drink, finding that to his liking as well, then reaching to gather another cookie from the plate.

“I also made you a present. Kind of.” This statement surprises him even more. 

She shoves the second half of her own cookie into her mouth and chews quickly as she reaches for the bundle of cloth at her side that he’d thought was her project for them sitting together before bed. She unfolds it, revealing a white tunic and handing it over. He immediately spots the colorful embroidery at the neck and bottom hems, and pulls it closer to examine the pattern.

“I swiped one of your hot-season tunics and added that. They’re spearmint. Because that’s what your magic feels like.”

Loki’s mind crashes to a halt as he looks up from the embroidery and over at her, feeling his eyes widening. “What my magic feels like?” he questions after a long beat.

Darcy wilts a little, obviously thinking she’d done or said something wrong, but answers with a nod and, “Yeah. Whenever you do magic, it feels cool, and tingly, and fresh. Like spearmint. I had to take a bunch of it out of my mother’s herb garden not long before I started coming here.”

Breathing and processing for a moment, Loki eventually manages to tell her, “I am sorry for that reaction, but I was not expecting that. I knew you are very sensitive to magic, but I did not realize you are so sensitive that you can feel magic that keenly.”

Her eyebrows scrunch and she asks, “Can’t everyone?”

Shaking his head, he tells her, “No. I.... I actually thought I was the only one for a very long time. I have met some others in my travels since, but not many, and none nearly so young as you.”

“But you can feel it too?” she clarifies, still looking a bit confused.

“Yes,” Loki responds. “And I have for as long as I can remember. But, like my inclination toward methods of using magic and how early I started showing signs, it is extremely unusual. Even my mother can only vaguely sense magic being used.” Going back to the topic at hand, he looks down again and finishes his cookie while he examines the pattern even closer. Jagged leaves in his green, arranged along a stalk and interspersed periodically with bunches of what he thinks are small, very light purple blooms. She’d said it was a herb, which would make sense. That style of bloom is common even on Asgardian herbs. “This is lovely,” he finally says, looking back up at her. “The amount of effort you have put into this evening whilst also keeping up your studies and maintaining secrecy is astounding.”

Darcy shrugs, moving to pick up her cup. “I learned a lot doing it all. And it makes me happy that you like it.”

She seems bashful saying this, so he doesn’t clarify for her that, while he does like the treats and drink and her gift, it is that she went to so much trouble that he is thankful for. And for her including him in her traditions in this small way. Frigga doesn’t even put so much thought into he and Thor’s natalities anymore, not since they passed their mid-adolescence.

Instead, he tells her about spending the day helping his mother in her private garden, beginning to ready it for the new planting season. Then, since she doesn’t have anything to occupy her, he summons out a book of folklore from the shelves in his study and moves to sit next to Darcy on the sofa, reading her tales aloud whilst she leans into his side, both of them periodically reaching for more cookies, and drinking their way through the remainder of the spiced juice.

It’s the best natality that he can remember having since he was a child himself.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone hasn't noticed, the plot here is gonna be, like, crazy slow. So.... I hope you're cool with a lot of fluffy worldbuilding for.... a long time. If not, cool, thanks for reading this far and happy searching for something that's more your speed.

“Are you courting and have neglected to tell me?” Frigga asks, amused as she examines him after they greet each other. 

Loki’s just sat down at table for midday meal, and only just refrains from rolling his eyes. “No, mother. I have not courted since things ended with Sigrun, and you well know it.”

Frigga doesn’t give up, reaching over to run a finger over the stitching around the neckline of his tunic. “Well, I didn’t do this, and I know YOU certainly didn’t, either. Someone had to have. It’s not an unreasonable assumption.”

“Reasonable does not mean it is the sole possibility,” Loki argues before sighing and informing her, “If you must know, I have been doing a bit of tutoring and become rather close with an apprentice. She gifted me this for my natality, with no romantic intent at all.”

“Are you certain?” Frigga asks skeptically, withdrawing her hand to allow him to begin filling his plate.

“Very,” he replies firmly.

She doesn’t look convinced, but they’re joined by Odin and some lords who he must’ve been meeting with before the meal, so she desists the topic and turns her attention.

Loki’s glad, for he is still thinking about it anyhow and he doesn’t know if he could have held out to his mother’s questioning for much longer. It’s a thing that has been weighing on his mind since a few days after his natality a few weeks before. He’d realized not long after that Darcy’s own natality is coming up just at the end of the season. He doesn’t have the time to devote to quite the sort of gifts that she’d made him, but he also has the freedom to go anywhere in the city and buy things. The thing that is weighing on him is that he simply can’t think of anything to get her. Nothing that would be nearly so personalized, at least.

He’d been considering a piece of jewelry to replace the bracelet he hadn’t seen her wear since he’d told her that she is, technically, no longer Midgardian. Nothing much, but she’s old enough for some simple pieces.

His problem with that is that it still doesn’t feel personal enough. And it has been a very long time since he’s cared so much about finding a suitable gift for someone. He’s out of practice.

Eating quickly, Loki keeps churning the problem over in his mind before he’s due at a meeting with his father and the council.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Trying not to cringe at being seen in public as himself, Loki morphs back into his own face a few steps before entering the shop he’s heading to. A disguise will not do him any favors in it. He’d more likely be turned away than actually be allowed to put an order in.

“Loki!” the fond greeting meets him immediately as he swings the door closed behind himself. “I haven’t seen you in an age! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He can’t help but return the fondness, a smile coming to his face as he sees that Hulda, the woman he’s here to speak to, is in front minding the shop at the moment. Faint sounds drift out from the workroom at the back, telling him at least one of her children is back there, two of the four of them having apprenticed to her to carry on the family business of jewelry-making. The woman is around his mother’s age, and is a longtime friend of Frigga’s.

She’s also the most sought-after jeweler in Asgard, in no small part due to her friendship with Frigga. Hulda is a gifted master of her craft, but at least half of Frigga’s own pieces were made right in this very shop, and that is a ringing endorsement to be able to boast.

Loki has many fond memories of her, having known her his entire life and been childhood playmates with her third-eldest child.

“Besides that it has been an age?” he asks, returning the hug he receives as they near each other and delivering a kiss to her cheek. “For a commission, of course. Several, actually. You’d have my bullocks for earrings if I went to anyone else.”

“Yes, I would,” she agrees merrily. “Shall I need to draw or have you come prepared?”

Still smiling, he follows her to a table; one of several set around the room with various materials to choose from. “A bit of both. Some I have a clear image, others only an impression that I know you will be able to bring fully to life.” With this, he pulls several sheets of paper from where they’d been folded into a pocket.

Hulda takes them to begin examining them, first flipping through them then going back to look closer at each. “Several indeed. Shall I ask who she is?” she comments in a knowing tone.

Loki doesn’t reply, instead specifying, “One of the earring sets are for mother’s natality upcoming, you know her preferences. I’d like the rest to be on the small side. The pendants not overmuch bigger than two copper bits, smaller if you can manage and retain the detail. The other earrings should be dainty.”

“Frigga’s are the only colors I recognize,” she presses with a raised brow.

“Good.” he stays resolute. There’s already going to be an interrogation from Frigga when word of this reaches her, he’ll not make any implications that could be misconstrued in the gossip. “I had also hoped to leave today with two pair of simple earrings and a piercing needle, if you’ve some to spare.” This will already get even more interest than he cares for. Him commissioning a fair amount of rather feminine jewelry in colors Hulda doesn’t know would be enough on it’s own for questions. That, presumably, the person he intends to gift it to, also presumably, doesn’t already have their ears pierced will raise brows. Most children have their first ones done before they reach adolescence then only add more later in life if they so desire.

At least he’s confident the only person she’ll gossip about this to is his mother. “Of course. I don’t have any ready-made for new piercings in a gold this light.” she tells him, moving momentarily to another table to fetch one of the hollow needles she uses for piercing and fold it into a thick bit of leather for him to carry.

“That’s fine.” he replies, taking the needle as she reaches into a drawer for a wooden box which he knows to be filled with little compartments of simple pieces that can either be bought as-is or customized for a fee.

Shortly, he has a small folded-paper box with two pairs of standard gold simple earrings in it to go into his pocket with the needle.

“I’ll need to design a custom alloy to get one that light. I assume you have thoughts?” she comes back to the drawings he’d done.

She’s correct. “Mostly platinum, with just enough of my gold to color and warm it.” Because his signature gold is custom as well. Gold as dark as he prefers simply doesn’t occur naturally; it has to be mixed with a black metal mined on Nidavellir.

This earns him an even more skeptical look, though she doesn’t try to question him about the recipient again. Him adding specifically his alloy rather than simple gold had connotations that will be misconstrued, no matter what he says. Thankfully, she only moves on. “And the stones? Amethystus is not this vibrant on its own, and violet sapphirium never comes in the same shade of violet twice, so you would not be able to find a second batch’s worth in the exact hue.”

“Iolite should fit nicely, I think,” he answers, having already considered that. “It’s easy enough to come by in a close range of shades, and if some is darker or lighter or speckled, it’s no great matter.”

Emerald had been chosen for him before he knew anything about gemstones, and he’d had to discreetly begin collecting other jewels of green that are more pleasing to him on his travels because if has any jewelry made for himself anywhere in Asgard, it will automatically come with the hyper-expensive and, in his opinion, somewhat boring gem that he’d had no say in. If he gets Darcy something rather common but close to her color, then she won’t automatically get stuck in the ‘top range and perfect ONLY’ situation that others have allocated him to in their minds.

Hulda only gets more curious, knowing very well that pairing a custom alloy with such a relatively common gem is mixed signals. If he were trying to impress a lover, he would’ve chosen a much rarer gem, even for the number of pieces he’s commissioning. He’d had several pieces made during the more than a century he’d been courting Sigrun; none of this is anywhere near in line with what he’d had made then.

“Is there a time you need them by?” is her final question.

“Mother’s earrings the day before her natality.” he states the obvious one first before reaching to rifle through his drawings and pulling out one in particular. “This before the hot season begins. The rest, as you may.”

With a nod, the woman visibly shifts back to fondness rather than a mix of business-like and intrigued. “Frigga will love these,” she tells him, tapping the drawing he’d done for the earrings for his mother. “She hasn’t anything like this.” Precisely why he’d decided on that for a natality gift. He’d gotten rather inspired designing the next several years worth of gifts for Darcy and drawn a few for Frigga as well, though he’ll be holding onto the others for future years.

Her natality is only just over two weeks before Darcy’s (or what he’d decided to designate as Darcy’s based on what she’d told him about the Midgardian system of tracking the year and comparing it to theirs), so it had been convenient as well.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

“Oh, Loki, they are lovely!” Frigga exclaims, looking down at the gift her youngest had just presented her for her natality, Thor and Odin both looking at them with vague curiosity. Neither of them are incredibly interested in jewelry, though Loki had picked up her fondness for it as a child, along with a great many other things.

The earrings are not identical, which is a Vanahamian style that she doesn’t indulge in much these days, having many more matched pairs from so long being in Asgard. One will begin at her lobe and curl all the way up and around her ear, her usual platinum swirling in delicate wave patterns, white titanium fused at the crests to create a froth. Most of the formations curl around small, glittering bits of sapphirium. The other is complementary, with hooks to secure from four of the holes she has from her lobe to halfway up her ear, miniscule chains weaving together to form a net, water-drops of the blue stone dripping from it throughout, and three tiny gold and silver fish caught in it - the darkest one with a bit of emerald, the two lighter ones showing a ruby on one and citrine on the other, largest fish. One each for her to carry a bit of he, Thor, and Odin with her when she wears it.

“I’m pleased you like them,” he sounds it, smiling more genuinely than she has seen him do in some time. 

“Hulda mentioned you were in to commission a large selection of your own design, were these yours as well?” she asks running a finger gently over his little fish. Her friend had strongly hinted that his commission had been an unusual one, obviously for a woman but Hulda wasn’t convinced it's for a lover.

“Yes,” he replies, smile growing ever so slightly tighter, obviously expecting her to begin interrogating him about his love life again.

Frigga can admit she’s been pressing him a bit excessively of late - every time that one tunic with the herbal embroidery makes an appearance. He still insists that it was from an apprentice he’s close with, and that there is no romantic interest on either side, and she knows he isn’t lying, but can also tell that that is not the complete truth either. She worries. Her youngest is so much more sensitive than he would have anyone believe; she hates to see him heartbroken. And wishes to see him happy, on the same note. He hasn’t seemed to even contemplate courting since Sigrun had been discovered to be having an affair nearly two centuries before.

Deciding swiftly to leave the matter to rest, at least for today, she leans to kiss his cheek and tells him again, “Well, they are beautiful. I shall be wearing them often. Thank you.” She also doesn’t comment that it is good to see him practicing his artistry again; he’s gifted. His father and brother, unfortunately, had included that in the long list of his interests that made him somehow less manly.

She considers it a tragedy that they’d shamed him so effectively in so many ways. He tries so hard to be what they want him to. She is unsurprised at his steady withdrawl of late, spending ever-more time either on his own or out in the city in disguise. The emotional toll that Odin and Thor take from him would have demanded it sooner or later. It will be a sad day for her when he requests to step back from his duties to inhabit one of the royal houses outside of the city. She knows it will happen eventually if things continue on the course they have been for some time now; it is only a matter of how much longer he will be willing to tolerate their constant ridicule and pressure for the sake of being close to her. It has been an incredible number of years since he held any faint hope of potentially being named the crown prince; Frigga can only be thankful that his sense of responsibility to the realm has kept him active in his duties since that hope had died in him.

Stars know Thor is nowhere near so dutiful. He still acts like an adolescent, attending said duties only begrudgingly, obviously having no care for the matters themselves, only sitting through them disinterestedly until he can flee to go carouse with his friends.

Frigga hadn’t said in front of the boys at the time, but she had rather agreed with Loki when he pointed out Thor’s bad behavior at his own natality dinner.

Odin, on the other hand, had heard quite a bit of her opinion later in the evening. After a long back-and-forth, he had promised to try to bring Thor to sense, and, if their eldest would not comply, to take very serious consideration to naming Loki crown prince instead. And she had withheld her longstanding belief that Loki would make the better king one day, anyhow. 

It would not be surprising; they had long suspected that he is, in fact, the bastard son of Laufey, who had kept pleasure slaves from other realms in his dungeons. Loki had been born of a Vanir woman that the soldiers had rescued, who died that very eve in childbirth, prompting Odin to bring her the babe, knowing she had already been wishing for a second child less than a handful of years after Thor had been born, and would love to care for it. Loki almost assuredly has royal blood in him, though not the royal blood of Asgard. And he’s a much better head and temperament for ruling than Thor, who seems to care only for war, wine, and women, in that order.

But to voice that to Odin would be akin to telling him that Laufey’s blood makes better kings than his own, and she knows better than that. Frigga can only hope he keeps in mind his long-ago promise to raise and consider Loki as his own blood as much as Thor, and remember that his own pride should not get in the way of appointing the more-suited son as his successor, for the sake of the realm.

With luck, Odin will surrender to sense before Loki feels the need to step back and leave.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

With a sigh, Darcy stands under the stream of hot water and carefully rubs at her sore shoulder.

Loki has her training with wooden practice blades now, and it’s taking more of a physical toll than the previous simple exercises had. Especially since she’s also keeping a more intense version of those up every day on top of the sword and dagger training. Of course, she’s also doing more to practice than he had told her to, wanting to get it down as quickly as possible.

Besides the fact that the idea of moving on to ACTUAL blades is just super cool, she’s still having a lot of trouble slowing herself down to an Asgardian pace of life. Just as Loki suspected she would.

He’d begun assigning her more tasks for each day when he realized she was rather bored, but he still intentionally doesn’t fill her whole day, wanting her to start getting used to spending time not doing much. Not being productive all the time. The sewing and embroidery help, because she can still feel productive while just slowly working through a very simple task and basically relaxing. A few weeks ago, a big, blank journal and a packet of what looks sort of like pencils had appeared on her desk.

Taking the hint, she’d started adding drawing to her list of hobbies to practice.

She’s really bad at it, but she’ll keep practicing. With both hands, because that’s just a standing order from Loki - she needs to learn everything with both. 

That’s why her shoulder is hurting her. It seems as though her brain wants her to use her left hand for handling any sort of blade. Mastering using her right for eating and cooking had been easy enough with some practice, the motions not being very complex. Working against her brain to do exercises with a sword or dagger “backwards” from how it wants to is much more difficult.

Reaching for her soap - she still thinks of it as soap, no matter how much she knows it’s called cleansing oil here - she automatically feels better as she pours several drops into her hand and smells her custom blend that she’d picked out. The first one she’d liked in the shop, from that same maker as the one Loki uses, actually isn’t very different from his. Very herbally, but where his has some kind of spicy edge with it, the one she liked for her was a little lighter and kind of flowery. Then, the next shelf over, she’d found another one she liked that reminded her of lemons and summertime. When she’d started getting a headache, those are the ones she’d gone back to decide between, and, smelling them in close succession back and forth, had realized they smelled even better together.

It had taken her a couple weeks to use up the rest of the unscented ones she had so she could use the empty bottle to mix her new ones together in, but now that she has “her” scent, she loves it. When she’s tired, or feeling a bit sad, it puts her in a better mood, and when she’s hyper and anxious, it calms her down.

Going through the motions of showering after her morning training, she gets ready again and moves to get herself lunch.

Just as she’s finishing washing her lunch dishes and trying to decide what to work on first, she hears the main door in Loki’s room open and knows he’s back to get ready for his own lunch, which he takes down in the dining hall with his family most of the time. She’s surprised when he pokes his head in through her open door first, as he generally heads straight to shower off his own morning training session.

“You’ve eaten already?” he asks, watching her set the plate she’d used back on the small stack of them in her room.

“I just finished,” she confirms, looking over to see him, surprisingly, not all sweaty and disheveled as she expects.

“Good,” he declares. “Pull your hair back and get your boots on. We’re going out.” With this, he removes himself again and she can hear him going to his own food cupboard, probably to grab some quick food for himself before they go.

Now excited, Darcy hurries back into her bedroom, plopping down at her dressing table to yank her brush through her hair, which she’d left loose to dry, and begin pulling it back in as neat of a braid as she can manage. He usually only specifies that her hair should be back when they train, so this is odd, but she can’t wait. While he now takes her out into the city every few weeks, it’s still a treat every time. She’d already dressed herself in breeches and a tunic for the afternoon, so she just has to tie off her braid and pull on her boots before she’s ready to go.

She’s barely set foot out of her rooms when she’s getting another odd command. “Bring your drawing things.” So she backtracks to get them from her desk, the large journal and thin wood box holding her charcoal sticks living there alongside her writing and study supplies.

Taking them back out, she sees him elbow-deep in a backpack sort of thing, seemingly arranging whatever’s in it and ensuring he has everything he needs. Curiouser and curiouser.

With a glance up, he gestures for her to hand them over, and she does, watching as they go in the bag as well, and noticing he has much more on his belt than normal. Belts here aren’t used for holding up pants like she expected, but instead are for carrying things. Most people keep a small knife on them for daily tasks, most have a stiff leather bag thing that they call a pocket and use to carry their coinpurses and any other small things they need or acquire throughout the day. It’s not uncommon to see oddly-shaped holsters to carry any number of things that someone might need with them, or a soldier just casually going about buying fruit at the market with a sword hanging on his hip.

Loki rarely goes about obviously armed. He keeps a dagger concealed in one boot, but other than that, usually only carries a common belt-knife and a pocket, and a shoulder-satchel for whatever shopping they may be doing. Says it draws less attention, especially since he’s in disguise most of the time when outside of the palace.

Now, though, his belt is wider and thicker than normal, and holds some sort of dagger she isn’t familiar with on his hip. As he finishes buckling the top of the backpack and steps back to lift it up to his shoulders, Darcy sees there’s another dagger on the other side as well, and two pockets rather than one, both placed differently than she’s used to. If it wasn’t obvious before, it’s now blatant that this is not going to be one of their usual outings.

“Where are we going?” she asks, somewhere between excited and anxious.

“Well,” he explains as he adjusts the bag slightly to be more comfortable and looks down at her. “You said that your natality is on or very close to the Midgardian longest day of the year, so I thought perhaps we could simply celebrate it on the longest Asgardian day of the year.”

Surprise floods through Darcy, and she feels tears that she doesn’t understand immediately start filling up her eyes. Loki smiles and kneels, and she doesn’t hesitate to step forward and throw her arms around his neck, sniffling into his shoulder as he rubs her back. “You didn’t think I would forget, did you?” he asks lightly, obviously not meaning it and just teasing. 

Once her rush of emotions has passed, she steps back a little to look at him again, finding him still smiling, and feels herself start to as well. That turns to a grin when he goes on, “So, today, we are going to teach you to ride, and I would like to show you one of my favorite places.” He grins back at her as she hops a little on the balls of her feet, now fully excited.

With a step back into his embrace, his magic crushes around them in a now-familiar way, but for longer than she can remember it ever being before.

They arrive in a clearing surrounded by trees, and her eyes are immediately drawn to the big mount that is padding towards them. She’s never seen one up close, especially the particular variety that warriors use, only seen pictures in books and the smaller, stocky variety used for farming and packing goods around in the city.

“This is my mount, Mimir,” he introduces her to it as he stands, reaching a hand to pat the neck of the animal fondly. “Mimir, this is Darcy. We’ll be teaching her to ride today.”

Mimir is like something between a horse and a cat. More on the cat side. Actually, she would probably describe him as a giant cat with some horse-like features. His face is longer and narrower than a cat’s, more like a horse, with a slightly-rounded nose and long oval nostrils, but with a cat’s fangs kind of sticking out over the bottom lip. The ears are halfway in between a cat’s rounded triangle ones and a horse’s long leaf-shaped ones. 

Mimir lowers his head down to snuffle at the hand she holds out for him to smell, and she examines the rest of him, seeing the rest of the body is much more cat-like than horsey.

When he nuzzles her hand a little in acceptance, she automatically does something she never realized she did before - pulls a little magic into her fingertips as she scratches softly around to find his favorite spots. Huh. She hasn’t really spent much time with animals since she found out she was magical, but, thinking back, she knows she’d always done it. Maybe that’s why all the neighborhood pets loved her so much.

“He likes you,” Loki comments, sounding amused. When Darcy keeps petting Mimir and looks up at him, he tells her, “He’s generally quite picky. I don’t believe he’s let anyone but myself ride him since he was very young and still being trained. He rarely even lets anyone else pet him. But I believe he shall be quite amenable to teaching you.”

Mimir snorts a little, seeming to agree with his master, and Darcy wonders how much he actually understands.

After another moment of enjoying her attention, he lifts his head and maneuvers himself to be sideways in front of them, then folds himself down to lay on his stomach. With a chuckle, Loki tells her, “Oh, he must really like you. He’s letting you learn to mount the easy way. His back is still a bit tall for you yet, so I’ll help you hop up and get settled, then I’ll mount behind you.”

With this, he proceeds to explain where on the narrow leather pad strapped to Mimir’s back she should sit, how to keep her balance with her thighs, and where on the harness she can hold on. Then, he walks her through how she would mount on her own - where to place her hands to help lever herself up after a jump and twist on her stomach to swing a leg over without yanking the harness about too much. After he’s done, he tells her to attempt it, but he’s correct that Mimir’s back, which comes up to her chest with him laying down, is simply too high for her to mount on her own. She can’t jump high enough yet, though he also assures her that it will get easier even with her now growing at an Asgardian rate, so long as she practices and works on building the muscles she needs for it.

So, after he gives her a hand up to get the height she needs, he adjusts her position straddling Mimir, then straddles behind her, his arms going around her to grip the harness right beside her own. As soon as Loki is settled, Mimir stands without any prompting that she notices, and suddenly she’s much higher up than she’s used to.

As soon as she’s restabilized herself, Mimir steps forward in a smooth motion that isn’t at all like she remembers the pony ride at the fair being.

In only a few moments, they’re moving through the tall, broad trees of the forest, Loki telling her some story about he and Thor playing out here as boys that she only partially listens to as she focuses on keeping her balance and looking around as they move, hearing birds in the branches far above them and seeing the occasional small animal scampering around. It’s so different than the forests she’s used to going camping in a few times a year when it’s warm enough. The trees are massive and spaced out much further apart. The wildlife around them seems totally uncaring about their presence, simply going about their business rather than running or hiding themselves away. A look upward shows her big, broad, green leaves with bright sunlight on the other side making them look almost neon, rather than densely-packed pine needles.

“Do the leaves change color and die in the harvest season or do they stay through the cold season?” Darcy asks as the thought strikes her, only realizing after the fact that she was probably interrupting whatever he’d been telling her.

Loki doesn’t seem to mind as he snorts out a laugh and answers her, “Most change and die away near the end of the harvest season. Some of the older, heartier ones will hold out into the cold season but not generally all the way through it, and there is some cold season growth that will begin as soon as the temperature turns to begin warming again.”

When she doesn’t have further questions, still just staring around, he seems to realize she hadn’t been listening at all and elects to just remain quiet as Mimir carries them through the woods at a steady pace, either already knowing where they’re going or Loki directing him in some way that Darcy is unaware of. There’s no reins or anything like with horses. She almost wants to ask, but figures she’ll probably find out soon enough. Especially if riding lessons continue with any regularity.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Loki relishes the peaceful day, very glad he’d done this. Darcy had only been out of the palace a handful of times, always only for a few hours to run errands, and always in disguise. He feels bad that she’s so cooped up most of the time, no matter how necessary it is for the time being and how much she insists she doesn't mind, as it won't be forever. 

And now they lay on the sheet he’d brought, both on their stomachs and propped up on elbows drawing, Mimir lazing nearby, Loki having removed the riding harness once they’d arrived at their destination. It’s quiet, only the sounds of the field and wood around them as they lay in his favorite field atop a hill, which has a view out over fields rippling with growing grain grasses and Asgard City glittering in the distance. He’d discovered it shortly before he and Thor entered adolescence, and it has ever been his place to come when he needs to be away from the palace and his family and his duties for a time.

He’d gotten them settled and pulled out both of their drawing books and charcoal kits, finally taking the time to give her a proper lesson in how to use the sticks, keep them pointed as she wears them down, and some basic strokes to practice, before setting her to drawing the wildflowers surrounding them.

If he’s honest, this small adventure for her had also been for him. He isn’t as restricted as she, but he’s been leaving the palace and city both significantly less since he brought her upstairs.

Not that he minds, generally. He’ll choose having her with him over more regular day-trips any day. But even so, the need to simply be away, to go somewhere to be just Loki, rather than Prince Loki, for a while has been neglected. To have Darcy with him for one such occasion is both novel and comfortable. To her, he isn’t Prince Loki anyhow, so it doesn’t feel as though he’s compromising on that aspect of this time, but there are so few in the universe that both see and treat him such that he’s unused to it outside of his chambers.

On his own drawing pad, his own charcoal moves smoothly to create an image of the distant city on the horizon, fields and forest between. He’d forgotten how much he enjoys drawing until he’d picked his book up to sketch his ideas to have some jewelry made for Darcy.

It’s already served him well, that little project.

Frigga has worn the earrings nearly every day since her natality, and boasts to every person who inquires about them that he’d designed them for her specially. Whilst he doesn’t particularly care what people think of him doing it, it feels wonderful for her to be so pleased and proud of him that she’s boastful. If he remembers correctly, the last occasion that that occurred was when he’d become the youngest mastery recipient in Asgard since Odin’s grandfather’s time.

For the first pieces meant for Darcy - as Hulda had delivered a pair of earrings as well as the pendant he’d requested first - he knows she’ll like them as well. She’s rather fond of the color scheme of those rugs that had been sitting in his storage room for at least 4 centuries, and so he’d painted the drawings in her purple and the light gold to match them, getting her a few lengths of cream-colored as well as black leather thongs to wear the pendants if she prefers that to the chain of matching gold that Hulda had sent. The pendant is comprised of knotted metal twisting around several gems to form a flowering shape, metal imitating the veins of a plant. The earrings she’d sent are a matching flowering shape, but with only a small round gem in the middle.

He’d pierced Darcy’s ears the same evening he’d placed the jewelry order, thankfully already knowing the healing charms, since they’re basic and he’d learned them ages ago mostly for Thor. Children are usually a bit older when they start wanting it done, but it’s not totally unusual to see a child of 600 with simple earrings.

She’d enthusiastically agreed as soon as he brought it up, so he thinks she probably would’ve been one of the ones asking sooner anyhow, had she been aware it was an option.

Loki’s quite looking forward to seeing how she likes the pieces, but he hadn’t planned to do so until after the evening meal, as is the tradition of his family. There’s a bit of concern that she may cry again, but they at least seem to be happy tears. She clearly hadn’t thought she would be celebrating a natality in any fashion; her surprise had been all-encompassing. It likely hadn’t even occurred to her to work out an equivalent date.

In a way, that makes him sad, but at least he can make sure it’s properly recognized from today forward.


	10. Chapter 10

Darcy feels weird walking out into Loki’s sitting room. She shouldn’t; she does it multiple times every day.

But, Loki’s not here. Not only not in the chambers, but not in Asgard City. His father, King Odin, had sent him away for a few weeks to handle something or other in a different province in Asgard, Skornheim. He’d apologized many times, which she hadn’t really understood, and stuffed both of their food cupboards full of as much as they could fit to make sure she would have plenty to eat for the two or three weeks he expected to be gone, and reminded her about 16 times where the medical supplies are in case she burns or cuts herself cooking.

He’d left yesterday after midday meal, and this is the first time she’s been out of her area since. It feels oddly empty. Too quiet. Which makes absolutely no sense because it’s exactly as quiet as any other day. It’s only mid-morning, he would be out on the training yard still even if he were here in the city.

Anyway, she’d pushed herself a little too hard in training yesterday and her shoulder is super stiff and sore today, so she’d made it a very light day, only doing some very simple exercises to give it a rest.

After about a year and a half of studying them, including all she’d done before coming upstairs, Loki has declared that she knows pretty much all she’ll ever need to about illusions and it’s just a matter of her practicing consistently to master them. He’d told her to look through some books in his study to see if anything else caught her interest, or if he should pick something for her. Little does he know that something else had already caught her interest, but she wants to work on it by herself for awhile. The next couple weeks with him gone are a prime opportunity to study it a bunch without him asking too many questions.

Entering his study, she goes directly to the crammed bookcases lining nearly every inch of wall, with a few sticking out from it because there wasn’t enough wall space to add more at some point.

Moving across a few of them, she pulls out 6 books that she’s already identified as being about shapeshifting, then takes her time perusing others. This takes awhile, because titles aren’t always helpful, and many don’t have the title on the spine or even the cover, so she has to open them to see what they are. Then there’s the height issue. The highest shelves are so high up that Loki has to stretch to reach them; Darcy has no chance for anything higher than she can reach by standing on a chair.

By the time her stomach starts grumbling for food, she’s found 4 more, and she heaves up the pile to take over to her own desk in her sitting room, mentally noting where each one goes so she can make sure it gets back into the correct spot long before Loki arrives home.

It’s not that she wants to totally change herself. Though that would be cool eventually. That’s how Loki disguises himself, while he just uses a color spell on her usually.

Actually, it’s mostly her coloring that she wants to change. Not a ton. Just a little. Just enough to... make her look a little bit more like Loki. Which sounds weird, she knows. But right now she looks a lot like her dad back on Midgard still. And, while she doesn’t necessarily have a problem with that.... Well, Loki’s basically her dad here, isn’t he? He acts like one. She doesn’t think he realizes it, but he does. Like freaking out about leaving her alone for a couple weeks even though there’s no logical reason to worry, since she has food, knows how to cook, and nobody but him can open the door to their rooms.

Not just that, either. They’ve gotten a lot more affectionate these past few moons, especially since he’d done the birthday surprise for her in the last moon. He’s always concerned that she’s eating enough and not overworking herself; he knows all her favorites, as well as the things she doesn’t like. Always makes sure she has fun, kid-type stuff to do as well as plenty of study materials.

And she’s just really used to looking like her dad. Except her dad isn’t her dad anymore. When she thinks about her dad, her biological dad isn’t who she pictures. Since she’s so used to it, now NOT looking like her dad has started bothering her. Just a little.

If that makes sense. It does in her brain.

That’s a really long explanation to say she’s going to make her hair darker and her eyes greener. Not totally green, but she thinks it would look cool to change some of the flecks of different shades of blue that are there now to green. Make them a mix of green and blue. She doesn’t know how Loki would feel about that, though, so she’s gonna do it reeeaallly slow. Make her hair just a tiny bit darker like once a moon, add one fleck of green about as often.

It’s a good thing these books recommend starting with those sorts of changes anyway, because they all describe doing it in different ways as starter exercises before moving on to changing any body parts.

But she also wants to take notes on as much of the more advanced theory as she can while she has the chance, in case she wants to start working on harder stuff later when she may not be able to take the books without Loki noticing. He probably wouldn’t even care about her studying it, but she doesn’t want him to know yet. The whole point is to start looking more like him without potentially upsetting him. If he knows that she’s studying shapeshifting, he’ll be looking for changes as she practices, and will notice she looks different.

And if he doesn’t realize that he’s being her dad, it might be because he’s not ready to realize it yet. She doesn’t want to make things weird by bringing it up. So, yeah. Doing this without him noticing is important.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Under the cover of darkness, Loki silently ascends the many stairs to his quarters, yearning for a wash, then his bed.

The past weeks had been exhausting. The trip to Skornheim had been to investigate a concerning number of complaints about over-taxation. He’d expected to find a new assistant treasurer that made an error and overcharged people, or perhaps some fraudster collecting extra taxes falsely.

A developing plot for a coup had been entirely unexpected.

The taxes had been levied by the order of the high lord of Skornheim, to fund outfitting and training a personal army, Loki found after some discreet digging in the archives, where the evidence had been hidden away in the records. Which is a ridiculous plot, because even if he’d both gotten away with it and managed to find that many men in his province that would be willing to go against the crown, it would still be a plot destined for failure. An improperly-trained army made from a single province pitted against the Asgard City Guard, the soldiers of the largest military base in the realm, the palace guards, and the Einherjar? They’d never have a prayer of succeeding.

Anyhow, Loki had been forced to do the part of his duties that he hates the most. The task that his mother had specially trained him for that his father pretends to have no knowledge of.

A raven had been sent back to the city to tell his mother when to expect him home and when she and father would see him after that, he’d had an entirely pretentious long discussion with the lord and the provincial treasurer about being more diligent in their bookkeeping and not overcharging people, getting equally pretentious reassurances that the matter would be dealt with swiftly, and he’d left the city. He’d made a point to tell several people that he would be traveling overland rather than following the roads, as it would be faster, then he had found a discreet location to make camp for two days outside the capital city of Skornheim.

When the time was right, he disguised both himself and Mimir to go back into the city, found a room in an inn for the night not far from the lordhouse, and waited for the city to quiet before transporting himself to said lordhouse to have the deed done.

One powder dusted carefully into the bowl of a smoking pipe, another into the bristles of a small mustache brush, a measure of paste mixed in with a skin conditioning balm that’s close to needing replacing. Some more magic to get back to his room at the inn, then a short sleep before he left at first light, just another lad who stopped for the night in the city before heading to Ringsfjord to work on a fishing trawler for the spawning season.

Frigga will have ensured he was seen at the appropriate times, in the appropriate places, by the right people as he actually had travelled hard overland for two days. Word will reach the palace in several days time that a lord, a treasurer, and the head trainer at the military base had all died suddenly within a week of each other, which is very suspicious, but that no signs of foul play could be found. Odin will send his condolences and appoint their successors, asking if they should like for Loki to return to investigate the suspicious deaths.

They will decline, of course. Because the messengers will have discreetly asked about Loki’s whereabouts since the time he’d left Skornheim, and find that he had arrived back in the city precisely on schedule and been seen at training and meals by many.

No proof. Not even grounds for proper suspicion.

And now, mentally and emotionally exhausted from his grim duty, he remains silent as he enters his rooms, in case Darcy had left her door open. After setting his travel bag down to see to on the morrow, he pauses before continuing to his bedchamber. Looking over, he finds that her door is, indeed, cracked open slightly.

Without really knowing why, he pushes it open fully and steps through, doing the same through the door of her bedchamber and moving to look down at the small girl in the bed there. She’s relaxed in sleep, breathing evenly, bits of hair striping across her face from where it had escaped the braid she’d put it in for bed. Leaning down, he gently brushes the strands off her face, then reaches to adjust the light blanket she’s under, pulling it further up where she had worked it down in her sleep. It’s the hot season, so the windows are all open and there’s no fire, but this far up in the palace, they get a wind that can be rather chill at night.

Satisfied that Darcy is well, he steps back out of her rooms, closing her main door fully as to not wake her when he arises to go to his training in too short a time for him to want to think about.

It’ll be less than half a night of sleep for him, but there are appearances to be kept up, so he’s no choice. 

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Meandering slowly down a road in the city, Frigga contentedly watches the people of Asgard mill about their lives. Today, she’s taken a page from her son’s book and come out in disguise. It’s not something she does frequently, but, every so often, she needs to simply be among people, another unremarkable face in the crowd.

As she contemplates a spinning shop, deciding if she’d like to go in to peruse, her attention is caught as the door to the herbalist shop next door opens, a girl’s voice chattering excitedly about experimenting to create her own custom tea blend. Smiling, Frigga looks over, and has to examine both the girl and her father, who she’s with. There’s somewhat familiar about him. His face isn’t one she knows, but he carries himself... like a warrior. Yes. She must have glimpsed him on the training yard recently.

He asks the girl, who must be not much older than around 600, why she chose the herbs she did, sounding amused at the enthusiasm. His voice has a vaguely familiar tone as well. Yes, she’s almost certainly seen him about the palace, though not often enough to know him. When the girl starts listing off the different characteristics of each of her selection as they slowly begin moving away, Frigga realizes something odd.

The girl is using the Allspeak.

And she knows a startling amount about the herbs she’s talking about. Curious.

Abandoning the spinning shop, Frigga casually resumes her own stroll, careful not to keep too even a pace behind the pair, stopping for several beats every so often to look into a shop window or examine the wares at a stall on the road.

As they enter a market square and begin wandering around, obviously with no particular destination at the moment, she continues to keep an eye on them. When they pause at a smithy’s stall, the man points at something and seems to ask a question, but Frigga is too far away to hear. By the time she’s repositioned herself, he has picked the girl up to examine something that had been too high for her to see.

“But they’re your favorite.” he says in a questioning tone. Frigga glances to see him pointing at a display of hairpins, particularly a set with brightly-painted starflowers on them.

“That doesn’t mean I want to wear them all the time,” the girl replies exasperatedly, before pointing at another set that have small, common crystals set into the ends. “What about those ones?” she asks, sounding as though she’s not incredibly interested in hairpins and it’s her father that wants to buy them for her more than anything. “Or some plain ones?”

Looking some mix of amused and incredulous, the man shakes his head and addresses the apprentice that’s minding the stall, saying, “The crystal set, then.”

The apprentice quotes the price and the man reaches into his pocket to fetch his coinpurse, which he holds up with his free hand for the girl to work open and pick out the 9 silver bits, handing them off before securing the purse again. Once the purse and bundled pins are in his pocket, the girl wraps her arms around her father’s neck and lays her head on his shoulder, trying to stifle a yawn.

Reaching up to stroke a hand over the girl’s hair, he asks, “Did you not sleep well?”

A shake of the head without removing it from her resting position, even as he begins walking again, this time toward a much quieter street leading away from the market. “My shoulder hurts from practice. I couldn’t get comfortable.” 

“I know you’re keen to move on to the metal practice blades, but what have I told you about overworking yourself?”

Interesting. It’s not so unusual for girls to have a little training in how to wield a blade, but it’s not common for them to practice regularly for long, and particularly not so young. Perhaps she had aspirations of following in her father’s footsteps to be a warrior. The Lady Sif was much the same as a child, Frigga recalls.

“If I do too much and hurt myself, it will only end up taking longer,” the girl quotes morosely.

“Yes, it will.” he confirms knowingly. “And if you’re hurting so badly it’s affecting your sleep, then you need to take some days off from practice to heal. And I need to have a better look at your drills, because you shouldn’t be hurting so, even overworking yourself, if you’re doing them properly.” Yes, he’s definitely well-trained in wielding weapons. If not a warrior, then at least a guard or soldier. She’ll have to keep an eye out to try and identify him. His daughter using the Allspeak so young is remarkable, she’d like to ensure he plans to at least get the girl the magical training she’s sure to need sooner than later.

The pair make a turn onto a narrower residential street, and Frigga doesn’t continue to follow them, as she would be unable to do so without being noted.

What an interesting little outing this has been, she thinks, spying a different spinning shop and getting back to contemplating if she’s in need of anything in particular.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

“Exactly how hard have you been practicing?” he asks Darcy rhetorically as he scans his magic through her right shoulder. “You’ve given yourself ligament damage.”

“Using my right hand for blades is really hard. So I practice extra to work on getting better at it.” she tells him, wincing as he gently prods the area she indicated hurt the worst.

“Wel, you’ll need to stop using that arm entirely for anything more strenuous than writing until you’re healed, then we shall have to have a look at the drills you’re doing. The ones I set clearly aren’t working for you, at least on that side.” Loki concludes, moving away to the cabinet that holds the medical supplies to fetch a jar of cream. “I’m not skilled enough in healing to fix this quickly, so I’m afraid it will take awhile. I’ll only be able to help ease the pain and help it along a bit. We’ll be massaging this into your shoulder nightly, and I will show you some stretching to do in lieu of training for the time being.”

With this, he dips a couple fingers into the cream and tugs slightly at the loose neck of the tunic she’s wearing to have clearer access to start rubbing it over the area in question, sending gentle waves of magic into her flesh as he does to reduce the inflammation of the tissues. The cream will do the same over a longer period of time to help with pain as it sinks in, before it dissipates, but the ligament itself will simply have to heal on its own.

“How long has this been hurting?” he questions while he works.

“Since the late planting season.” she answers meekly.

Sighing, he softly chastises her, “You should have said something much sooner than this, Darcy. If you ever have a pain that doesn’t resolve itself within a few days, please desist whatever activity is causing it and tell me.”

“Okay,” she agrees quietly.

Once he feels her relaxing as the pain eases, he pulls back, replacing the lid on the jar but leaving it out for easy access as long as it will be needful. 

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

“Mother!” Loki calls to get Frigga’s attention as she walks the other way down a corridor away from her public chambers, quickening his pace to catch her up as she pauses to look back, with a smile.

“Son,” she greets as he falls into step beside her. “I trust you are well?”

“Yes, and yourself?” he inquires.

“My day is always brighter when one of my children deigns to speak with me,” she teases.

Laughing, knowing she has a point - he’s absentee quite a lot, and Thor is little better - he admits, “I’m afraid today it is to beg a small favor. I was hoping to gather some herbs from your garden.”

“You know very well you’re welcome to take whatever you need,” she reminds him.

“Yes, but it would be rather impolite to simply help myself without asking outside of an extenuating circumstance,” he teases her back defensively. “Particularly as I require some volume of them; I need the extractions, not the leaves.”

“So it would,” she concedes. “What are you making?” she asks curiously.

“I’m running low on anti-inflammatory ointment,” he tells her easily. “None of the apothecaries carry any that work nearly so well as your recipe.”

“Are you using it frequently?” she asks in that worried mother tone, turning her head to look him over critically.

Laughing, he assures her, “Not particularly. I typically only need it when I’ve overworked myself in training. It’s simply been long enough that occasional use has worn down my supply.” He hopes she believes that, anyhow. He almost never gets away with outright lying to her, but half-truths can go either direction.

“Well, don’t be prideful. Go to Eir if you need to.” she warns, seeming to accept his explanation.

“Yes, mother,” he agrees fondly.

“So long as I have your ear, might I ask you somewhat in return?” she asks, waiting for his noise of assent before saying, “I borrowed your trick for going out into the city just over a week ago, and encountered a warrior or guard that seemed quite familiar, but I’ve yet to see him in the palace since. I thought you may have better chances of already knowing at least who he is.” With this, she shifts the stack of papers she has in her arms to shuffle through them and pull one out, handing it to him. 

Loki looks down at the page to see a sketch of.... Himself. Well, the disguise he’d last used to take Darcy out into the city. After a moment, he says, “He looks familiar, but I couldn’t say where I have encountered him either. Then again, if he’s one of the night guard, we’d both be unlikely to see him overmuch, and he would be on a different training schedule to me.” Handing it back to her, he asks, “How do you know he’s a warrior without knowing who he is?”

She frowns a bit, looking over her own drawing again before reincorporating it into her pile. “The way he carried himself. There’s a particular posture one has when one spends quite a bit of time training for combat.”

Well, he shall have to note that to be more effective in the future. “And why are you searching for him? Did you witness him doing somewhat to require reprimand?”

“Oh, no,” Frigga laughs a little as they continue to meander down the hall. “He was out with his daughter. She couldn’t have been much older than 600, perhaps 700 at the oldest, and already using the Allspeak fluently. From what I overheard of their conversation, she seems to already know a fair bit about herbalism as well. I wish to be certain she’ll be getting the proper training to nurture her talents. The last time I heard a child so young with such mastery of the Allspeak, you were that small.”

Oh dear. When he’d returned from his trip to Skornheim some weeks before, he’d asked Darcy if she’d found anything that she’d like to learn next, and learning more about herbalism had been her answer. One of the most common early practices of it are designing your own teas for different effects. He only keeps a small selection on hand, so he’d taken her to the herbalist to stock up. “Well, if she knows it and is beginning to train with herbalism, I would assume the appropriate arrangements have been made and are likely already underway.” he tries to deflect.

Frigga sighs, “Yes, I know. I had simply hoped for a bit more information. I’d like to keep an eye on a talent like that.”

“If her talent is truly that remarkable and not simply manifesting early, I am certain you will encounter her again,” he says a bit placatingly.

“I suppose.” Figga agrees, still sounding disgruntled about it. Pausing to lean up and kiss his cheek, she says, “Help yourself to the garden, darling. And if you would, please keep an eye out for that guard.” With this, she starts upstairs toward her private chambers, likely to look over whatever the rest of the papers are.

Loki tries not to be self-conscious about his posture as he walks toward her private garden to make his harvest.


	11. Chapter 11

Riding is a lot harder than Darcy thought when Loki first took her out on Mimir.

Loki hadn’t seemed to be doing anything sitting behind her to get Mimir to go where he wanted, and that was because Mimir (who is VERY smart, Darcy has learned) already knew where the big clearing they were going to was and also that that was their destination, Loki having told him before he came to get her from the palace. Now, Loki has started bringing her out to the forest one day a week, after he gets back from training, to actually learn to ride on her own when Mimir doesn’t know where she wants to go already. 

There’s no reins like with horses and ponies, which, in her incredibly limited experience on rides at the fair, is how you steer horses. No, on Mimir, there’s just the very simple harness which consists of little more than a padded length of leather to sit on and two straps; one across his chest and another under his tummy a little behind his front legs. All the steering is done with HER legs, which is difficult, not the least because he’s so big that her legs barely reach off the leather they sit on, only from just under her knees down resting on his fur. Mimir, thankfully, is very patient with her learning, since he likes her so much. Loki has started joking that Mimir loves her more than him, and, from Mimir’s behavior, he doesn’t entirely disagree. He insistently demands cuddles and scratches from her as soon as Loki appears with her and before he’ll let them do anything else, and he always seems grumpy when Loki is preparing to take her back.

Amazingly (to her), Loki had also started leaving her out with Mimir in the forest by herself after the first few times and once he was satisfied she knew the basic commands, heading back to the palace to do whatever after-midday-meal duties he has for the day. When she’d questioned why he was okay with that but still sometimes frets over leaving her by herself in their rooms, he’d shrugged and explained, “Mimir is a very rigorously trained war mount, Darcy. He knows how to fight as well as I do. I have no doubt he’ll protect you, and can get you back to the palace easily if there’s any trouble. If that ever happens and you come back to the palace with him, just put illusions over the both of you to make him a different color and you to look older.”

So, she and Mimir spend part of the day riding through the forest together, a waterskin hanging from one side of the harness near the tummy-strap and a satchel secured to the other side with some snacks and stuff for her.

Darcy has also decided that he is almost certainly actually some kind of cat, as she had first assumed when she saw him. He purrs when he’s happy, though it sounds different because he’s so big, and she’s discovered his favorite game is chasing lights. When her legs start hurting from keeping herself balanced and steering him around the woods, she’ll tell him to take her to Loki’s field. There, she’ll unbuckle the tummy-strap and twist herself for the kinda fun hop down off of him; it’s high, but as long as she remembers to bend her knees while she lands, she’s fine.

Mimir will lie down and let her lift the harness over his head - the chest strap is sewn onto the seat and doesn’t have a buckle - and demand some more cuddles from her before they start playing. Sometimes, Darcy will run around and he’ll play a sort of ‘tag’ game, but mostly her legs hurt and she’ll just stand and make a purple orb of light for him to chase like a housecat with a laser pointer. His long tail waves around wildly as he hops and twists and pounces after the light that she directs around the clearing.

Right now, though, Mimir has tired of their play for the day and they’re just relaxing in the field for a little while before heading back to the clearing near the edge of the woods to meet Loki again.

Mimir lays in the middle of the field, purring a bit and napping in the hot sun, while Darcy reclines back against his tummy. She’s already eaten the fruit and paper bag full of nuts that Loki had left for her snack, and is drinking periodically from the waterskin, for once not thinking about much of anything. The sun, the riding, and the fun have her almost in a mood to nap as well, though she knows they’ll need to go soon.

She’s right. It’s not much longer before Mimir perks back up, telling her it’s time to get his harness back on and go. The harness itself is a bit awkward, but not too heavy as long as she leaves off the satchel and waterskin. She just has to be careful lifting it to not strain her still-healing shoulder. Fetching it, she gets it over Mimir’s head and in place. He stands, waiting for her to crouch and step under him to grab the tummy strap and move back again before laying back down for her to buckle it and attach the other items.

When this is all done, he rolls partway onto his side for her to more easily make the jump to be laying on his back on her tummy and rolls back upright at just the right moment when she does for him to be flat while she twists to straddle him and move into place. 

By now, she knows how to get from one clearing to the other, and Mimir makes her give him all the commands rather than just taking her, so she double-taps her toes to have him stand, then shifts her weight and presses lightly with her whole right foot to turn him the direction they need to go. Once they’re in the trees and going the correct direction, Darcy shifts her weight forward to get him to go a little faster and he speeds up to a slight jog. Not quite running, but his steps have a different cadence than walking and they’re definitely moving quicker.

When they near a stream, she diverts them over to it for him to get a drink, as it had been awhile since he had any water, and Mimir bends to lap some up for several moments before straightening. That done, she gets them back on track, eventually reaching the clearing and finding Loki already waiting for them, sitting against the trunk of a tree at one side and reading.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Loki does his level best to hide his relief when Mimir and Darcy arrive in the clearing. Mimir would be cross with him if he showed the slightest inkling of worry, insulted that Loki would ever even think that he might not take care of Darcy.

And Loki does trust his mount to see to her safety. But he still worries anyhow, because he’s leaving a small child alone in a wood with only a mount to care for her. He and Thor had run around this same wood regularly to play when they were not so much older, but they’d had each other, their old training mounts (retired war mounts used specifically to teach trainee soldiers and warriors - and princes - to ride), and also a guard at a discreet distance. Darcy being out here with a highly intelligent, still-fairly young, and deadly-trained war mount is very nearly as safe, but she’s still technically alone.

It’s a quandary, but he knows the regular time outside has been good for her. The freedom to essentially spend the bulk of the day as she pleases still but without the option of doing anything at all productive has forced her to relax somewhat. In the weeks he’s been doing this, first staying with her then leaving her alone, she’s smiled more, and acquired a healthy golden color to her skin. He hadn’t even realized how pale she was from being indoors at nearly all times since she’d arrived until their first full day out on her natality. Their short trips into the city weren’t enough to do much for it, and he doesn’t think she spends much more time out on their balcony than it takes to check on and care for the plants that had been transferred out there for the warm seasons.

His mother will castigate him if and when she discovers not only that he’s caring for a child but that in doing so he regularly leaves her alone for extended periods of time. The days in his rooms he can almost certainly defend himself for, as he stops in at least once midday when he comes in from training to check on her, and retires there as soon as his duties for the day are complete. Leaving her out here with a waterskin, some food, and Mimir, however, Frigga will find utterly unacceptable.

To say nothing of the weeks she was on her own while he had to tend to the Skornheim situation.

Now, though, it is time to get her back to have the evening meal and ready for bed. Stepping over to them, Mimir letting out the smallest of grumpy growls as he knows his time with his beloved small person comes to a close for the day, amusing Loki. The beast is incredibly attached to the child.

“Oh, stop complaining,” Darcy grouses, reaching to scratch Mimir in his favorite spot behind the ears, “We’ll be doing this again in a week.”

Loki joins in her scratching for a moment before reaching to unhook the waterskin, prompting her to do the same with the stachel on her other side. Once both are stowed in his shoulder bag, he reaches out to gather Darcy directly from Mimir’s back, telling the mount, “Please take yourself back to the stables, Mimir.”

Mimir grumbles unhappily again, but follows the order, stepping away to exit the wood and traverse the road through the grain fields and return to the city. With a thought, Loki pulls his magic around he and Darcy to take them back to his quarters for the evening.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Darcy feels as though she can’t focus her eyes on any single thing as she sits on Loki’s shoulders while he wades slowly through the crowd. They’re at the harvest festival on one of the days that he isn’t strictly required to be here. 

Music catches her attention but before she can fully turn her head to see who’s making it, a pair of jugglers throwing hand-tools quickly back and forth catches her eyes, and she smells roasting meat from the massive wildebeest on a spit over a huge fire, and over there is a woman folding and twisting herself into unusual shapes- 

It’s the fourth day of the week-long festival. The first couple days, the royal family come down, to open the festival and tap the first kegs and such, then to compete in the tournaments that begin the second day, each taking the first match of whatever styles of combat they choose to compete in, then getting a couple days free as the first rounds for everything to be completed. Loki had brought her down today, as always, in disguise, to see what it’s all about.

It’s like the state fair, but without any rides, as far as Darcy can tell. Instead, they have weapons and hand-to-hand combat tournaments and wrestling matches. There’s even tournaments for the kids.

She realizes she hasn’t been paying the slightest attention as Loki reaches up and taps her hand before raising a stick with cubes of meat and vegetables stuck on it for her to take before moving off another direction and eventually lifting her down near an area where a bunch of kids are using knives to carve some big, reddish-purple, pumpkin-like things. 

The food is delicious, and this is SO FUN.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Entering the dining hall for midday meal, Loki tries to hide his sigh as Thor, and, subsequently, Thor’s friends all glower at him from a nearby lower table.

He doesn’t know what he could have possibly done to earn their ire on this occasion. They hardly interact anymore; he can’t even remember the last time he’d said more than a passing greeting to any of them but Thor, and he only truly speaks to Thor at the family natality dinners when they’ve no other option. It’s no longer even a rivalry between them. At least, not from Loki’s side - Thor appears to still hold some grudge.

Loki simply has more urgent things to be getting on with. He can’t be bothered to feel anything beyond mild annoyance at his brother of late. When this latest bout of hostility had cropped up, Loki had been surprised to find himself unable to muster more than a faded echo of the resentment he’d felt not so long ago. After thinking on it for some time, he’d realized that actively carrying around the resentment is just too much effort to bother. He knows full well that Odin will never give him the crown if it can be helped, and that isn’t Thor’s fault. Even if it were, there’s nothing to be done to change it, so he might as well just get on with living his life. Teaching his apprentice. Doing his duties, and his training, and spending the odd night away from the palace for some fun that is most definitely not suited to bringing Darcy along.

Ignoring the hostile looks, he makes his way to his usual seat at the high table next to his mother, returning some greetings along the way. Once he’s seated, he gets pulled quickly into the conversation his parents are currently having with the master of arms about updating the training requirements and schedule for the rapidly-approaching cold season. Evidently, the agriculturalists responsible for the yearly almanac have informed him that this cold season is expected to be particularly brutal.

It would not be surprising. Even this harvest season has been particularly bad, with storms coming more frequently than usual, and every night and most days already being cold enough to freeze. He wouldn’t be shocked if the first substantial snowfall came any day, at least a moon earlier than it generally comes. 

Just after the harvest season began, he’d had to take Darcy to be fitted for proper riding breeches of leather, a matching riding cloak with a hood, and lined boots and gloves actually made for her feet and hands, as she hadn’t wanted to give up her days with Mimir, but it had been too wet and cold for her to continue in the linen breeches, his old lightweight boots, and woolen cloak. He’d paid a premium to get the order completed quickly, but she should be able to use them for at least a century before she outgrows them and the benefit is gives her to be away for the day is more important than a bit of gold, so the investment had been justified in his mind.

They’d had to make her a new set of woolen shorts and undershirt, and some more substantial woolen tunics as well, but those are all at least simple garments that had been little effort.

In the middle of the conversation, they’re interrupted by a footman. “Apologies, highnesses,” he says as he appears on the dais behind their chairs and all of them turn, his eyes sweeping in a line from Odin, past Frigga, then settling on Loki. Holding out a thick envelope for Loki, he says, “This arrived from Alfheim today, sir. Marked urgent.”

Brow furrowing, Loki says, “Thank you,” as he takes it, the footman disappearing immediately once relieved of his delivery.

The handwriting is familiar and Loki immediately flips it, finding an equally familiar songbird stamped into the wax seal. Prying it gently open, he ignores the questioning tone of the resumed conversation as his parents and the armsmaster go back to it while still discreetly watching him.

Despite the thickness of the vellum envelope, the letter inside is short. It’s from a friend and sometimes-lover on Alfheim, telling him simply that she is ill. Irreversibly so. And she feels her thread fraying and time running incredibly short. Asking him to come see her through her final weeks and perform her final rites. His eyes keep running over the paper again and again as he processes the news and request.

“Loki?” Frigga asks softly in a very concerned tone. “What is it?”

“I’m going to need indefinite time away,” he manages to says, nearly whispering, still in shock as much as for privacy.

“Has something happened on Alfheim which requires our assistance?” she asks just as quietly, obviously fearing it’s one of the many lords and royals there that he’s acquainted with.

Head clearing slightly as he realizes she’s assuming the missive is political in nature, he swallows thickly a few times before answering, still lowly. “No, no. it’s a very dear friend. She’s gravely ill, and has nobody to care for her through her final days. She’s asked me to come, to see me a last time and for me to tend her rites.” Just saying it, he can feel unwelcome tears threatening and tries to keep swallowing them back. Besides being at the high table in the middle of a meal, essentially on display, Odin is only on the other side of his mother. Far too close for Loki to risk showing such emotions.

“Oh, darling...” Frigga switches immediately from concerned queen to pained mother. From the corner of his eyes, he sees her hand twitch as though she’d stopped herself from reaching for him. He’s grateful. Had she offered any comfort, he assuredly would have begun crying outright. “Go. Now. I’ll handle your father.” she orders instead.

Nodding jerkily, Loki rises and hurries from the hall, letter and envelope still in hand.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_ 

“I’m uncertain how long I will be away,” Loki tells her as she watches him hurriedly finish unpacking a bunch of extra food into his food cupboard before moving to grab his backpack. “There should be food here for a few weeks, and you know how to get more if you run low.” That had been a thing she learned just after he got back from Skornheim, he realizing that she should know in case such an eventuality should come to pass again. “If I expect to be gone much longer than that, I will return briefly and move you to the house. We will expand on that plan if it comes to happen.”

He’s speaking disjointedly, with a frantic sort of energy. Darcy isn’t totally certain what’s going on, having not had time to process yet. He’d come rushing in with a basket of food a bit ago yammering about a friend he needs to go to and being gone for some weeks but he’s unsure how long, apologizing about her losing her days with Mimir for some time.

“I’ll be fine,” she assures him for probably the third time. Even without knowing exactly why, she can tell he’s obviously upset.

Soon, he’s brought a stack of clothing out from his bedroom to stuff into the bag, followed by a few knives and daggers, some non-perishable food, and other miscellany like his journal and pens and ink and some other things. After that he disappears into his bedroom again, emerging a few minutes later in an outfit similar to what he’d gotten her to go riding in several weeks ago. “You remember how to contact Frigga if there’s a need? And how to get to the medical wing?” he asks as he fastens his leather jacket.

“Yes,” she promises before pushing herself up to stand on the chair she’d taken to watch him prepare to leave.

He already knows what she wants, his face softening as he steps forward and gathers her up in a hug. Darcy squeezes as tight as she can with her arms around his neck and shoulders, Loki squeezing her back in return, hard enough to restrict her breathing a little. She doesn’t mind. He obviously needed a hug.

He shakes a little almost like he’s crying but when he kisses her forehead and pulls back, his eyes are still dry. “Mind your shoulder,” he reminds her, moving to grab up his backpack and swing it over his own shoulders.

“Stop worrying about me,” she orders firmly, getting the slightest of smiles and another kiss on the forehead as he moves to leave.

Once he’s gone, Darcy looks around the big sitting room, still standing on the chair. “Well, at least he stocked us up on wood yesterday,” she says to herself as her eyes land on the big stacks of wood on either side of the fireplace, knowing there’s matching ones in by hers. If she keeps the shutters closed most of the time, she can keep the fires banked pretty low and use less wood to conserve it, just keeping it warm enough that the plants don’t die.

With nothing else to do out here, she moves back to her rooms and the book on fungi native to a particular region of Vanaheim that she’d been reading, still not totally sure what’s going on.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

The crackling of the fire in the main room below is the only sound as Loki lays in the familiar bed, ensconced in thick furs, Asta under his arm and laying comfortably across his shoulder and chest.

They’d met when he had hardly yet tasted proper adulthood, just over 1500 and on his first ambassadorial assignment. It had also been his first trip with Mimir, and they had still both been bull-headed and young, wrestling with each other to figure out their dynamic. As such, when he’d gone out on a hunting trip with the twin princes of the realm, Mimir had attempted to assert his dominance by pretending to chase after something or other and run off wildly, separating them from the hunting party.

Loki had held on and eventually brought Mimir back under control, but Mimir had taken them much deeper into the mountains by that time, and Loki had no bearings or map to find his way out. 

As dusk had begun setting in, they’d found a large clearing in the dense wood, a circular house characteristic of the region off to one side, near a wellspring, and neatly-arranged patches of grain and vegetables covering much of the rest of the small field. An absolutely gorgeous woman had emerged from the house only a moment later, and he’d stumbled over his words as he had introduced himself and requested permission to make camp at the edge of the field and fill his waterskins from her well, explaining he’d been separated from his hunting party and become lost.

Asta had been rather amused at his obvious nerves, offering a hot meal and her spare bed instead.

After he’d relieved Mimir of his riding harness, irked at the beast and somewhat-seriously thinking he wouldn’t even care if the creature wandered off to never return at this point, Loki had joined her inside. A plate of stew and conversation had relaxed him enough to ease his nerves, and, after dark had fallen fully and they’d both had their fill, he’d been led up to the second level in the house, a floor propped up on support stilts around the perimeter of the structure and sectioned off into rooms with stretched skins in frames. The beds are set into the floor, more stretched skins providing the base to support the occupant rather than hard wood, while furs piled over to provide both comfort and warmth. Cubby-like shelves are set around the outside walls for storing things, and small, circular windows let in light and air, with nothing covering them in the warmer seasons.

Asta had fed him again in the morning, and they’d emerged to find Mimir looking unrepentant, laying in a grassy area near the house. He’d been re-harnessed, but Loki did not ride him, just filling the skins hanging from the harness and commanding Mimir to follow as Asta led him to the nearest road on foot.

With simple directions to the nearest village, they’d parted ways friendly.

It wasn’t until a few weeks after that he’d seen her again, and this time it was purposeful. With a handful of days free of commitments, he’d cited wanting to explore the realm and set out to find her, ostensibly to bring a token of thanks for her generosity. Loki had navigated himself easily to, then past, the village near her small homestead, and Mimir had been surprisingly cooperative in getting them from the path to her house.

Much less tongue-tied on that occasion, Loki had offered his thanks and the bottles of wine he’d acquired on his way out of the city, and she had accepted with a knowing grin. An invitation to dine with her again and share one of the bottles had led to him staying again, in her bed that night, as well as the subsequent three before he needed to go back to the city. Another moon later, a nearly identical visit had happened, and again for four more moons after that until he was to head home to Asgard.

Thus had begun a friendship that he has cherished ever since. There were never any delusions of romance between them, but they do care for one another quite a lot, and share a bed whenever Loki comes to visit.

Except, now, she’s slowly wasting away from the inside.

Tightening his grip around her back, once again memorizing the feeling of her skin beneath his fingertips as he turns to nuzzle his face into her hair. He’s been here just over a week, and, honestly, it’s difficult to see she’s ill most of the time. She’s thinner than he’s accustomed to, but she doesn’t look sickly. It’s really only obvious in how tired she is. The mornings are fine, but her energy begins visibly flagging as midday approaches, and she has to take a rest after the midday meal. She re-emerges halfway between midday and the evening meal for another period of calm activity, then is directly to bed nearly as soon as the evening meal is through.

Asta says it’s the same sickness that had claimed her mother when she was small, recalling watching her mother slowly fade away, and her father drowning in his own grief afterward, holding on until late in Asta’s adolescence, after she'd moved to the city to take up an apprenticeship with one of the popular minstrels, before succumbing and dying of what she insists was a broken heart. Once her apprenticeship was complete, she had moved home rather than continuing to play and sing in the city.

Evidently, it is a sickness of the intestines that has plagued her mother’s family for generations, so she’d long been aware that it was likely how she would die. It’s why she never found a long-term partner or had children, not wanting to carry on the long tradition of grief. 

“Are you ready to tell me what’s bothering you?” she asks, shifting slightly against him to get more comfortable.

With a deep sigh, he tells her, knowing there is really no reason not to tell her. “I found an impossible child on Asgard some time ago. A Midgardian girl. She has magic, somehow, and I believe astral projected herself to Asgard, using spontaneous, naive magic to forge herself a body. There’s no way for me to test that theory, but I can’t think of or find any other even slightly possible explanation.”

“You’ve been caring for her?” Asta questions, curious.

“Yes,” Loki confirms. 

“How old is she?”

“That’s even more difficult to determine. At the time she arrived, she was entering the final third of her childhood, in Midgardian terms. Around 600, for us, give or take 50 years.” Asgardians boast the longest lifespan, but are biologically actually incredibly similar to both the Vanir and the light elves of Alfheim. Their longevity doesn’t beat them by a very wide margin, and it’s extended further only through the power of Idunn. “Between some things she’s experienced and her natural tendency to be quite responsible, she seems, in some ways, like a mid-adolescent trapped in a child’s body, while in others she’s still incredibly childlike.”

“And who cares for her whilst you are here with me?” is the next question.

Holding back another sigh, he tells her, “Therein lies the source of my trouble. Her very existence would cause pandemonium, so none know of her. She’s by herself. I’m not necessarily worried about her wellbeing; she is perfectly capable of seeing to her own daily needs, and has done so for a few weeks when I’ve been away before, however...” he trails off, not certain how to explain his anxiety.

“You’ve promised to take care of her and don’t like the thought of her being there alone, but there’s none you can ask to care for her on your behalf without your secret getting out,” Asta summarizes it nicely.

“In essence,” Loki agrees.

“You won’t be able to keep her secret forever,” she chides very gently. “How will you explain her when the time comes?”

“I know not,” he explains. “I’ve been focusing on just teaching her all she needs to know to pass as an Aesir when the time comes, as her new body appears to have taken on that biology over time and exposure, as well as training her magic. I suppose I’ve been putting off finding an explanation until it’s unavoidable.”

They lay quietly for some time with their thoughts, until Asta begins speaking again. “Wasn’t it just about 600 years ago we first met?”

“Thereabouts, yes,” he confirms idly, thinking back again, far from the first time since arriving.

“And have you told anyone on Asgard about me? You said once that coming here is your escape, so I’ve always assumed you kept me a secret.”

“I may have mentioned meeting a dear friend after returning from that first trip, but i don’t believe I ever gave specifics.” he tells her curiously. “And I’ve not mentioned where I was going any time I have visited since until now, and then only told my mother that I was going to see a dear friend on Alfheim through their final days. Why?”

Asta carefully pushes herself to prop up on an elbow and look at him seriously, flickering light casting over her from where firelight peeks through the gap under the wall. “Well, if nobody knows you’ve been back to visit until now, it wouldn’t be difficult to say you discovered an old tryst bore more consequences than you knew.” Loki feels his eyes widen at the implication, but she keeps speaking before he can say anything. “I live in near-total seclusion here; you know that. I go into the village to trade for some thing that needs replacing perhaps once in a century, by times not even that frequently. Even if someone were to come asking, the villagers would say it’s entirely possible I had a child they were unaware of. And from the direction you typically approach from, I assume you come from deeper in the mountains, not the city road. So they would know of your visits back then, but not more recent ones.”

Swallowing hard, Loki makes sure he understands what she’s saying. “You want me to say Darcy is my daughter by you, whom I had no knowledge of until now?”

Shrugging one shoulder delicately, she justifies it further. “You need a reasonable explanation for her. I’ll be long gone before anyone needs find out about her, and it’s convenient. I called you here now because I know I haven’t much time left, why not simply add that there was an additional reason of you needing to take custody of our child? Growing up here would give you reason why she mightn’t know things that most children would about Asgard. Our seclusion here equally means she would have little reason to know much of Alfheim. Her being as gifted as you in magic, as it sounds as though she likely is if you are training her already, would simply be a matter of course.”

His mind spins. He’d dismissed claiming Darcy as his illegitimate child out of hand upon his first time considering what to do with the girl in the cupboard, partially because he and those he’s close with all know how cautious he’s been to ensure that DIDN’T happen, but Asta is quite correct. It would make sense and also hold up to scrutiny. And while many who know him well might consider it unexpected for him to slip so, he HAD been very young at the time. Only a spare few years beyond his majority, away from Asgard on his own for the first time. Asta was not his first lover, but at that age any man could be easily distracted by a beautiful woman and make a mistake.

It could work.

Forcing his attention back to the present, he puts that out of his mind. There is still time yet to think on it. And he needs to give her as much of his attention as he can manage before.... Oh, by the Norns does it hurt to think about the day that will come too soon when this warm little home will stand empty surrounded by a bare, grassy field. When they will never again lay like this and talk.

Pulling Asta back to him, Loki goes back to trying not to think so blatantly on why, exactly, he’s here.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

“Darcy!” she hears Loki’s voice through her closed door and rushes to go out to him.

He looks tired, and still very sad. Had his friend died already? She doesn’t ask, just hurrying over to interrupt him rifling through a cupboard and get a hug. He snorts out the smallest of laughs before pulling back and reaching in for one of his shoulder bags.

“Come, let us get you packed.” he says, moving back the direction she’d come from. Oh. So she’s going to the house and he’ll be leaving again.

In her bedroom, he first pulls out... a set of her riding breeches and underthings, as well as one of her extra-warm long-sleeved tunics. “Go change,” he commands softly, nodding toward the bathroom. Confused, she grabs up the clothing and does as he said.

When she emerges again after changing out of the dress she’d been wearing, he’s no longer in the bedroom, but her dressing table is looking more bare, with her brush, hair cream, and most of the leather strings to tie off braids missing. Hearing him moving around, she walks out to find him packing a bunch of her books and other desk stuff into the bag. Do all of his bags have bigger insides than outsides? She’d never really noticed with anything but his backpack.

Before she can ask what’s going on, he says, “Riding cloak, gloves, and boots as well. I have to take all of our plants down to my mother’s chambers for her to care for them for the time being and gather some more of my own things. Pack your cleansing oils, drawing things, and an embroidery project or two. Then begin closing all the shutters and securing the windows.” He’s being weirdly short. Not mean or anything, but he usually explains at least a little bit, even when he’s in a hurry.

“Okay,” she confirms she understand his instructions, making him nod and stride off after stuffing a couple last books into the bag on her desk chair.

Peeking into it, she finds that is indeed MUCH bigger inside. It looks liked he’d packed her at least a few changes of clothes, all her hair stuff, most of the books that had been on her shelves, her current journal and the spare he’d gotten her at the same time, and all her pens and inks.

Moving to follow his instructions, she hopes he’s going to explain soon.

Just as she’s done packing and is moving to pull on her outerwear to go out on the balcony to secure all the shutters, he comes back into her room, grabbing up several of her plant pots and popping away. He comes back and makes two more trips before all her plants have been taken, and she sees all his planters already gone as she latches the wood coverings on his windows. Once she’s done, she goes back in through her door since his is locked and shuttered, securing her own behind her.

The bag is gone and she can hear him out in his sitting room. Walking out there, she finds him slinging the strap of the bag across his body and adjusting it for comfort. Hearing her boots on the floor, he looks over and motions her over.

In short order, two of his waterskins are getting strapped onto her own body by a long strap the same way the bag is on him, and he’s kneeling to wrap his arms around her. Without warning, he transports them away, to a snowy but familiar clearing at the edge of the woods, Mimir waiting for them. Still very confused, she pets the happy mount as Loki stands and pulls the waterskins right back off her to fasten to the riding harness.

“Loki?” Darcy finally questions, extremely confused. “What’s going on?”

He looks down at her, confusion also showing on his face for a few beats before he seems to realize he hadn’t actually told her anything except what to do. Face then softening, he starts speaking. “I’m sorry, Darcy; I’m quite anxious to get back to Asta, I don’t wish to leave her alone for long. You’re coming with me. She wants to meet you and didn’t like the thought of you being on your own at the house in the city any more than I did.”

“Oh,” Darcy says. That at least explains what’s happening, but it brings up a whole bunch of other uncertainties. She’s never really met anyone except Loki and Mimir as HER since she left Midgard. She still doesn’t really know what this woman is to Loki, how they know each other.

As soon as the skins are on the harness, Mimir lays down for she and Loki to mount, Loki just lifting her up rather than having her jump, then settling behind her. Once he’s adjusted the bag again from resting on his hip to behind him, he signals Mimir to stand, which she recognizes now after learning to ride herself, and they set off.

Looks like she’s going to Alfheim?


	12. Chapter 12

Loki feels guilty as Darcy again tries to hide her yawn from him. She sits on the harness in front of him, doing her level best to stay upright on her own and not slump back into him to give either her stretched hips or her back a break, and has yet to complain once about him surprising her with the trip or any of the associated discomfort he knows she’s feeling, having never ridden for nearly so long at a time before. He would stop them for the night and let her stretch and sleep, but he’d left his kit to make camp on the Alfheim side of the portal. The trip from the portal to the palace is only about half a day at steady pace, and he’d obviously not been thinking clearly when he thought to just leave it there for the day as he could easily make the trip to fetch Darcy and be back to make camp tonight if he hurried.

He should’ve just taken the extra partial day and made camp on this side, but he hadn’t really been thinking of Darcy’s limits, concerned only with fetching her and getting back to Asta.

“We’re nearly to the portal,” he tells her, suppressing his urge to apologize. He’d tried once already only for her to be slightly hurt at his implication that she would be unable to handle the hard travel. “We’ll make camp on the other side.”

“Alright,” she responds tiredly.

As promised, Mimir is soon maneuvering them through the gap between two great boulders at the base of a cliff. The cave on the other side is a welcome temperature, not truly warm, but feeling so in comparison to the dense and snowy wood outside. Mimir knowingly follows the cave back and back, taking the correct forks with no input from Loki, and Loki warns Darcy as they approach where the portal itself begins, “Remember to keep breathing deeply. Air is more scarce through the portal, you may become dizzy.”

He gets only a noise of acknowledgement this time, and he frowns before removing one of his hands from the harness to pull her closer and make her just lean on him for support already. Under his hand and the thick clothing she wears, he feels her let out a huff, probably annoyed at him for it, but she doesn’t argue, letting go of her own grip on the harness, leaning back into his stomach a bit more and wiggling slightly to shift her hips, which he knows have to be aching by now. They’ve only stopped a few times to give her a short break while Mimir drank from streams and Loki refilled the waterskins at the same time.

Eventually they emerge from the portal and into the cave on the Alfheim side which houses it. Mimir stops and immediately lays down outside the smaller antechamber not far from the entrance where Loki had left the camping kit. He must know how uncomfortable Darcy is as well.

Loki lifts her down onto the stone floor, keeping his grip until he’s sure her legs will support her before dismounting himself. “Through there,” he points at the gap in the stone wall.

Darcy goes in and he sees her purple magic light the area as he waits for Mimir to stand again to remove the harness for the night. Before long, they both follow her into their accommodations for the evening. It’s nothing special, just a roughly round chamber with enough room for a few people and/or mounts to lie down in. She’s doing some stretching as she waits for them near his travelling pack, which sits against one wall next to the sleeping skin he’d left laid out from the night before.

“Are you hungry?” he asks, stretching a bit himself.

With a shake of her head, Darcy answers, “No, just tired.” Hardly surprising, and she looks and sounds it.

“Well, let us sleep, in that case,” Loki says, bending to flip the top section of his sleeping skin from over the thicker bottom section, revealing the fur lining the inside. “Do you think you can sleep in your boots or would you like to remove them?” He knows she still hates having anything on her feet and wants to give her the option, though he typically would just tell her to leave them on, for warmth and in case they need to make a quick exit. Very very few know of this cave and the portal within, so he’s not terribly concerned about that being a necessity, and heat won’t likely be an issue, as he expects she’ll very shortly be wedged between he and Mimir in addition to the warmth of the skins.

Instead of answering, she immediately bends to begin unbuckling her boots, and they’re off in a moment. Loki quickly lays himself down in the skins, leaving enough room for her to crawl in on the attached side and motioning for her to lay down with him. She looks oddly at him still in full cloak and all for a moment before shrugging it off and joining him, cuddling into his side as he settles the top skin over them.

As Loki expected, Mimir joins them as soon as they’re settled, pushing his side up against Darcy’s back to keep her between them.

It’s a testament to how tired she truly is as she falls asleep almost immediately. Loki only gives a mental head-shake before joining her slumber, knowing Mimir will wake him if there’s any trouble.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Darcy eats standing up, enjoying the heretofore unappreciated action while she can, knowing she’s in for another long day of riding.

Loki had evidently packed all the food that was left in both their cabinets - a few days worth - which had stayed sufficiently cool in the bag since they’re out in, y’know, the snow. There hadn’t been much meat left, and they’d eaten it for the evening meal yesterday during a brief stop, Loki cooking it quickly over a magical fire. Breakfast is cheese and fruit, and that plus nuts will probably be midday meal as well.

“How much longer is the trip?” Darcy asks idly as they both take their time eating.

Loki responds without looking at her, “We’ll make camp one more night, then arrive at Asta’s house before midday on the morrow.”

Her eyes narrow. He’s making the trip longer because he thinks she won’t be able to do a full day. “I get that I’m a child, but that doesn’t mean I’m a baby.” she bites out, making him look up at her in surprise. Before he can say anything, she asks directly, “If it was just you, you’d be back there this evening, wouldn’t you?” His resignation betrays him as he realizes he’d been caught out and she wouldn’t be having it.

With a sigh, he confirms, “Yes.” Then he clarifies pleadingly, “But to do that is a hard ride even for me, Darcy.”

“Other than me sitting in front of you, why should this trip be any different than any other one? Is me being on Mimir really slowing us down so much that you have to add an extra almost half-day to a ride that you seem to have done quite a few times?” she asks grumpily.

“You aren’t used to long trips,” he tells her, “I don’t want to push your limits.”

She knows the only reason she’s getting away with this is because he’s torn between her comfort and his desire to get back to his friend. “All I’m doing is sitting there. I’ll be fine. You don’t want to leave Asta alone for too long, and you’ve already been gone, what, two nights?” she says, consciously moderating her tone now. The point isn’t to antagonize him.

“Yes,” he says unhappily, giving in to her demand to ride as he normally would.

Shortly after they’re done eating and have gone out into the woods to relieve themselves, Mimir rejoins them from hunting down his own breakfast, and they get back on their way, this time with the bag of her stuff in front of her as Loki has his travelling pack on his back.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Asta descends from her sleeping space to find the small girl, still in her riding clothes bar the cloak and boots, sitting with Mimir in the open space between the door and the fire pit which he long ago claimed as his during the cold seasons when he doesn’t wish to sleep outdoors. The great mount’s head is in her lap as he hums in contentment. She’s stroking his ears and head, looking lost in thought until Asta’s footsteps sound, at which point she looks up and forces out an awkward half-smile.

“Good morning,”Asta greets, pushing her own awkwardness back. They’d hardly met last night, the girl practically asleep on Mimir, sitting in front of Loki as they arrived back well past evening mealtime. She’d expected him to slow his pace to account for the child, hadn’t expected them until sometime today at the earliest, but he’d told her once they got to bed that Darcy wouldn’t hear of it.

“Good morning,” Darcy returns, still running her fingers through Mimir’s fur steadily.

Making her way to the privy, Asta cleans up and returns, moving to gather provisions to break their fast. Loki’s still asleep, rather exhausted from the trip. She’s shocked that Darcy is up already.

“Are you hungry?” Asta questions as she begins chopping up some fungi and root vegetables. Despite Darcy being here at her insistence, Asta isn’t entirely sure how to talk to the girl. She’s never had much exposure to children, living here with her parents until near her majority and her only time away among the wider people, during her apprenticeship, being spent largely singing and playing at inns in the evening, when not many children are about.

“A bit,” Darcy says noncommittally, looking into the fire, which she must have added wood to when she awoke.

“Did you sleep well?” Asta keeps trying to make conversation.

From the corner of her eye, she sees Darcy shrug, “I suppose.” The girl seems to realize she’s trying and decides to also put in a bit more effort. “I kept waking because I’m not accustomed to the sounds here. Did you sleep well?”

“As well as I ever do these days,” Asta says with a shrug of her own. She rarely sleeps well now, most often cycling between fitful sleep and that sort that’s almost too deep that never leaves one feeling properly rested. Among the things Loki intended to bring back from Asgard is some herb that he believes should help with her constant abdominal discomfort, but it had been too late and both of them too tired last night for him to dig it out of his bags and brew her some tea with it to find out.

“Did Loki not pack you more comfortable clothes?” she asks curiously, again catching sight of the almost-white leather breeches as the girl shifts slightly to be more comfortable where she sits on the floor.

“He did, but all of his things are on top of them in the bag and Mimir wanted cuddles before I could do more than use the privy this morning,” Darcy explains, “So I haven’t had time yet to unpack Loki’s things to get to mine.” Just how much had Loki brought? Asta silently wonders.

Deciding she may as well stop asking silently, if only to continue making conversation, she asks aloud, “How much did he pack that you need to unpack his things to reach yours?”

“I’m not really sure. I was closing up our rooms while he got most of his stuff. But the bag is a lot bigger inside than outside,” Darcy explains, pulling her fingers from Mimir’s fur finally and nudging him to move his head so she can stand. Mimir makes a grumpy noise, but complies, standing and moving to exit through the closed but not secured door-cover, pushing it aside to go out and likely find his breakfast.

The girl moves to collect the shoulder bag that’s next to Loki’s travel rucksack, taking it to set it on one of the chairs at the dining table before flipping the top flap open. From it, she begins pulling things, muttering what each is to herself as she starts organizing it all on the table.

“Loki’s oils, his new journal, his spare ink set, books... books... books..., herbs?, our favorite tea, sweetening powder, his favorite sweets, my favorite sweets, more herbs..... I think that’s it.” she eventually declares, rummaging in the bag for another moment. Asta looks over as she transfers the chopped food into a pan and sees that there is, indeed, quite a lot there. Probably ten books, larger jars of the cleansing oils she knows he keeps in his travel pack, and neat piles of the other things cover one corner of the table.

“Well, the sleeping space you were in last night will be yours for your time here, if you wish to unpack,” Asta informs her as she reaches for the jar of lard and bag of salt.

“Okay,” Darcy acknowledges before taking the bag up again and ascending the stair opposite the one that leads to Asta’s side of the upper floor. Asta tries not to admit that her shoulders loosen slightly in relief when the girl disappears behind the wall of the other sleeping area.

Hopefully it will be less tense once Loki wakes. Else it will be a very long road to the girl getting to know her well enough to pass for her daughter.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Darcy takes her time unpacking, wondering why the quiet sounds of Asta making breakfast are nearly impossible to hear. She can sense various magic around her, but it’s very different to what she’s used to; the things Loki does all the time. Maybe there’s some sound-blocking spells on the thin walls or something. That would make sense. There wouldn’t be much privacy in the small house otherwise; you’d be able to hear every move anyone else there made, not at all blocked by the fairly substantial gaps around the frames holding what looks like some kind of leather that make up the few walls.

Everything here seems to be quite different from Asgard, but also, weirdly, reminds her much more of Midgard. Except for the shape of the house and some of the more obviously magical elements, it kind of reminds her of a cabin that her parents had taken her and Jake to in the mountains a couple times. Water from a well, heating it and cooking with a fire (though the cabin’s had been a wood stove instead of a small round pit in the middle of the room), only a basic toilet for the bathroom. She’s already wondering about bathing; obviously there’s some means of it, since Loki had packed both of their sets of oils, but she hadn’t seen any kind of tub or shower in the little house as of yet.

Something that’s a surprise, still, is that Loki had let her basically bully him into the exceptionally long day riding yesterday to get here. Normally he would’ve put his foot down, though she can’t say she’s at all upset that he’d given in and they’d gotten to sleep on beds last night instead of the icy and snowy forest floor camping to spread the ride out.

It doesn’t take her long to fold her clothes into a couple of the little cubbies along the outside wall of the small bedroom. Loki hadn’t packed her much; the riding clothes she’s still wearing, one more set of warm, wooly underclothes, two pairs of her warmer not-leather breeches, three tunics, her soft slipper-shoes, her warmest pjs, and one dress. Once nearly everything is put away, she stands and begins changing out of her riding clothes. Outer clothes get folded in with the others, boots get shoved into their own cubby, and underthings are set aside to ask about laundering later - they’ll need it after she’s been wearing them for two days straight, sweating a bit as they kept her almost too warm out in the frigid air while they rode. 

Once Darcy is redressed in clothes more appropriate for.... whatever they’re going to be doing here... she starts slotting her books and various other supplies into the remaining cubbies, and stacking some on top of them for easiest visibility and access. At the very bottom of the bag are some loose things that had drifted down through the journey, and she shakes her head in bemusement as she pulls out a fistful of her hairpins and leather hair ties.

She has yet to see a single mirror in this place, so she’s definitely telling Loki that if he expects anything other than a simple braid, HE’S going to have to do it.

It takes a minute to sort out the mess of hair accessories and use one of the ties to secure the pins in a bundle so they don’t end up all over the place. That task complete, and the lot settled next to her hair brush and cream, one final look and swipe of her hand around the interior of the bag confirms she got everything. With a frown, she pauses to pull her slippers on (she still hates having things on her feet, but she’d already discovered the hard way that the floor downstairs is too cold to comfortably go barefoot for more than a couple minutes) then takes the bag back down the narrow steps from the platform that creates the upper level.

Fire now built up instead of the low embers it had been before, Darcy idly sets the bag back down next to Loki’s stuff on the table and inspects the interior with more care than she’d been able to earlier. There isn’t much to it. Under her room there’s a short shelf with about two dozen books on it, and a few instruments of some kind, with a few of some sort of cushions, with furs thrown over them, towards the edge, presumably seating of some kind to be close enough to the fire for warmth and light. Below what must be Loki and Asta’s shared room - she’s not sure how she feels about that yet-, which is about twice the size of hers, is the “kitchen” area, which looks like a different version of what she has in her rooms at home, with a cabinet for storage and a short counter with shelves for more storage and preparing food. Between it and the fire pit is a small (relative to what Darcy is now used to at the palace) rectangular dining table, with three chairs around it. 

Up on the second level, she sees an open space between her room and Loki and Asta’s, about the same size as hers but with more cubbies showing on the back wall, a totally solid floor instead of the weird suspended bed thing, and several trunks lining the edge that faces the room. Instead of stairs, this looks to be accessed by what looks like a ladder, propped at an angle reaching from the stone floor to a hole in the platform. Underneath it and next to the ladder stairs is the privy (as Loki had called it in the extremely abbreviated tour when they’d arrived late last night) which is little more than a tiny room with more of the leather-in-frames things and a toilet that seems to be halfway between the box-type ones of Asgard and the ones she’d grown up with on Midgard. It’s shaped more like the Midgardian ones, but appears to function like the Asgardian ones, vanishing waste as soon as it touches the receptacle.

The only other things of note are against the third-ish of the outside wall that isn’t taken up by the platform. One more bank of cubbies with odds and ends and one of shoes makes Darcy note to bring down her “outside” boots to store there instead of up in her room. There’s also some hooks along the walls with cloaks, rope, gardening tools, and.... is that a bow and arrows? ... hanging from them. Another note to bring her heavy cloak down later with her boots. The only other things are a big stack of firewood and the door itself, which is covered by a heavy piece of leather that is split down the middle, overlapping itself while it’s secured to the frame at the top and sides, hanging low enough to drag on the floor a bit, to block most of the cold from getting in. At the split, the half that falls to the outside has short lengths of just as sturdy leather, formed into loops, and some hooks sewn on it just past where the inner flap ends. The inner flap has holes, and Darcy thinks that - if they ever wanted to “lock” the door, the loops would get pulled through those and around the hooks. Mimir had seemed perfectly comfortable in his spot on the open floor space between the door and the fire, and navigated going out through the door a bit ago easily, so she suspects it’s generally left open for him to come and go.

Asta descends, again, from her room, and Darcy realizes that she hadn’t noticed the woman wasn’t downstairs. Oops. She’s really not used to being around anyone but Loki anymore.

They trade slightly uncomfortable smiles, both aware of the slight awkwardness of the situation, as Asta moves past Darcy to pick up some sort of towel-like thing, which she uses to pull the long-handled skillet to the edge of the grate in the fire. She pokes at a couple things before standing, bringing the skillet with her, and Darcy moves to the other end of the table to give her room to move with the hot pan.

“Just about ready,” Asta mutters, setting the pan down in the middle of the table but careful to keep it well away from Loki’s things, before looking to Darcy. “Will you get the kettle and put it on the fire? I’m sure you know how Loki is in the mornings until he has his first cup of tea, and he was especially reluctant to wake when I went to fetch him to break fast.” With this request, she nods toward the counter, and Darcy follows the gaze, catching sight of a narrow, but deep, metal pot with it’s own long handle, and a small pouring spout.

Doing as she’d been asked, Darcy sees it’s already nearly full of water and maneuvers it over to sit on the grate, handle coming to just over the stones around the perimeter, as she’d seen the pan placed before. She then moves to begin re-packing all of Loki’s stuff into the bag again, only leaving out the food items, while Asta moves back to the worktop and pulls a loaf of bread out from somewhere, beginning to cut thick slices. The bag gets settled half-under the stairs up to Loki and Asta’s room, and Darcy is checking the kettle when she hears footsteps on the stairs. A glance reveals Loki, dressed more casually than she’s ever seen him outside of their rooms at the palace, in loose breeches, an even looser tunic, and slippers like hers which she’s never seen him wearing before.

Still looking mostly asleep, he silently makes his way to the privy while Asta sets some wide, shallow stone bowls and metal utensils in front of each chair, adjusting the position of the hot pan as she goes. There’s a slice of bread and hunk of cheese already in each bowl, off to one edge of it, and Darcy abandons her water-watch to look at the utensils. The small knife is familiar, very like the ones they use on Asgard, but the other thing is different. It reminds her of the plastic sporks they got to eat hot lunch at school, but... sideways. Like a shallow spoon, but with prongs poking out of one side-edge.

Her inspection is interrupted by Asta setting some mugs on the table that are startlingly similar to her parents coffee cups, but for the fact they appear to be carved from stone instead of formed with ceramic. At some point, Asta had put away most of the food things that Loki brought, leaving only the teas and sweet powder on the table, so Darcy moves to grab one of the tea jars, using the little spoon in there to measure some of her favorite into the mug she’s closest to at one end of the table. Loki emerges again as she’s adding a spoon of sweetener and automatically begins the same process with the mug at the other end of the table, still not saying anything.

Asta had been right about how he is before he’s had his tea; it’s pretty pointless to try to engage with him until he’s halfway through his first cup. Not that Darcy sees him just after waking very often, as he’s usually out to the training yard before sunrise. But, on the occasions she has seen him for breakfast, it takes him awhile to wake up.

He does seem to perk up, though, as he finishes preparing his tea, looking around then moving to grab the bag of his things, bending to fish through it for a moment before pulling out the bundles of herbs. Liverwort and two others that she doesn’t recognize. Darcy isn’t even sure where he’d gotten them from; she knows all the herbs in the cabinet at home that he keeps them in, dried and waiting to be used. He HAD popped away to take their plants to his mother though, so maybe he’d gotten them from her while he was at it.

Loki starts pulling sprigs from each bundle and twisting them around each other before setting them in the third mug, which must be for Asta at this point. Asta herself finishes whatever she was doing and takes the seat that’s become hers by process of elimination, facing the fire and between Loki and Darcy.

It’s when Darcy moves to check the water that Loki finally speaks. “I’ll get it. Sit and start eating,” he gently commands in a voice much more gravely than she’s used to, and Darcy obeys, reversing her path to sit at the place she’d claimed instead.

Asta finishes using the big spoon to serve herself and hands it off to Darcy. Darcy begins scooping out whatever she’d made and piling it on the side not occupied by bread and cheese. Stopping after a few scoops, not sure how full she’ll get how quickly with the unfamiliar food, Darcy inspects it curiously, finding what seems to be a couple varieties of mushrooms, some potato-ish root veggies that she has come to believe must have a slightly different variety on every realm, and a couple kinds of seeds or nuts, all having been covered in oil and a bit of salt before going on the fire to fry up.

Loki’s still just turning to get the hot water, so Darcy looks to Asta, who’s begun eating while Loki finished preparing her tea, watching her use the unfamiliar utensil. After a split second, Darcy frowns a little. She’ll have to use the hand she doesn’t like for cutting. The Asgardian utensils can be used “backwards” fairly easily if you switch hands, but these are made in a way that you HAVE to use them in your left hand, the tines for spearing food to hold it as you cut being along one edge instead of at the end.

As water is poured into her mug, Loki chuckles. “It’s not that big a bother. Just eat.”

Asta looks between them, obviously not knowing what he’s talking about. Darcy pouts a little more, picking up the utensil and knife to begin eating as he moves on to pour water for Asta, then himself. “But my right still doesn’t like blades.”

“You mastered eating backwards more than a year ago,” he teases her as he sets the kettle to the side and finally takes his own seat. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Fine,” Darcy says distractedly, focusing largely on working out how to position the utensil in her hand as she further slices up the hot food. “I’ve kept up the strength and flexibility exercises you set. Slow ones only.”

“Fine by your definition or fine by mine?” he clarifies.

Rolling her eyes as she manages to maneuver some - oh she’s just going to start calling them potatoes - onto her spork, Darcy replies, “Probably somewhere in between. It gets cramps if I try to do too much or go too fast, but nothing like what it felt like in the planting season.” Knowing what his next question will be, she preempts it with, “And yes, I stop when it starts cramping and do the stretches, then take a hot bath and use the cream.” Which makes her realize the cream hadn’t been in the bag of their things. But, the wooden practice blades hadn’t been either. “Am I not going to practice while we’re here? You didn’t bring any of my practice blades,” she inquires. The house is small but there’s enough open floor space that she could, and he may have put them in the other bag he had with him at some point.

This makes Loki frown around the bite of food he’d just taken, Asta still watching them interact interestedly. After a moment, he answers her, “I forgot them. I suppose you’ll need to join me for basic conditioning instead.”

“You’re teaching her combat?” Asta asks, sounding amused at the idea.

Loki replies easily, “She’s to be living with me in Asgard; everyone has at least SOME training. Given her status due to my own, she’ll be expected to be basically proficient with all simple weapons and skilled with at least one more specialized one. Besides, it will be quite some time before she knows enough magic to wield it defensively. I don’t care for the thought of her being completely helpless.”

Asta makes a sound of understanding before asking another question. “And what will her status be, precisely? Obviously you are a prince, but what will her title be?”

This question makes Loki’s expression go sheepish. Clearing his throat, he glances between Asta and Darcy, seeming reluctant to speak. When he does, what he says makes little sense to Darcy. “Well, I haven’t exactly explained the situation yet....”

“Loki...” Asta chides, giving him an exasperated look.

He defends himself quickly. “I was in a hurry to prepare my rooms to be vacant for some time and pack everything I needed! And that didn’t seem like the sort of conversation that should be had whilst riding for an extended period of time.”

“What conversation?” Darcy butts in in a demanding tone. Obviously it’s something that’s going to affect her.

With a sigh and a long drink from his tea mug, Loki begins filling her in. “We’ve spoken quite a bit about what you need to learn to pass as an Asgardian child.... But we haven’t discussed how we’re going to explain your... well... existence. I’d been struggling to come up with a way to convincingly explain how you came into my care and whence from. Struggling enough that I had given up until it would be closer to the time I needed to do so. Asta proposed a rather simple solution. Though it will also make certain things quite complicated.”

Darcy feels her eyebrows slowly raising as he trails off, all three of them looking around the table at each other, food forgotten for the moment. After a long beat of silence, Darcy prompts, “And that would be.....?”

It’s Asta that breaks, still looking exasperated at Loki having not explained it to Darcy before arriving. “That he pass you off as our child, whom he did not know about until now, when I called him here to tend to me in my final moons and perform the funeral rites, as well as take custody of you.” The explanation stops Darcy’s thoughts like they hit a stone wall. Asta looks her over somewhat calculatingly, eyes running over the messy, curly black hair and Darcy’s face. “It shouldn’t be difficult. You have nearly his exact coloring already, and none in Asgard know who I am or what I look like to say if you and I have similar features or not.”

“... Oh.” Darcy eventually mumbles after another long moment of silence. She doesn’t even know where to begin with putting her scrambled thoughts into questions.

Loki takes over, though, explaining more. “Asta lives quite isolated, so it would be reasonable that none would know of a child - or a lack of one - should anyone from Asgard come to investigate. It would also offer you quite a bit more leeway in regards to knowing the things children of either Asgard or Alfheim would at your age. Theoretically, you won’t have lived or even BEEN anywhere but here until I supposedly take you back to Asgard with me. Asta knows the Allspeak from her own apprenticeship, and could easily have taught you when you began exhibiting signs of magic extremely young, much as Frigga did with me.” He pauses, looking tentative again as he finishes explaining, “I brought you here now to get to know Asta enough to be able to speak about her casually, as well as become familiar with the area and learn a bit of the local common tongue that you would have learned before the Allspeak....” he trails off again.

Asta picks up the thought, seeming to know what Loki is still reluctant to say. “I have only a few moons left, perhaps three, at the very most, so the two of you will need to close up the house to prepare it to be vacant for some time whilst you go to Asgard with Loki, ostensibly for the first time, after I pass. At that point it will be up to the pair of you to determine when it would be appropriate and when you are ready to be revealed.”

The pained expression that immediately takes over Loki’s face makes Darcy’s own heart hurt. She still can’t find any words to express the whirlwind of thoughts careening through her head, though.

“At some point, likely fairly soon, before I begin losing my strength and can’t write steadily any longer, I’ll need to draw up documents to record when you would have been born and state your parentage,” Asta continues. “It had to wait until you arrived, as certain physical traits need to be included; any birth marks and such. Loki wasn’t certain whether you have any.”

Shaking her head, Darcy manages to mumble, “I don’t.” before she notices Asta’s hands begin moving over her bowl again, and slowly follows suit, Loki joining them in eating again after another breath.

That’s... a lot to take in.

It’s not like Darcy’s upset about it - the whole point of changing her coloring to nearly match Loki was because she considers him her dad now anyway, she isn’t about to complain because he’s going to, relatively soon, be like LEGALLY making her his daughter. But she hadn’t been expecting it. Loki has explained very little about Asta anyhow, so the whole situation has been a series of abrupt changes accompanied by very little, very disjointed information. When he’d first come here a few weeks before, he’d barely been able to focus to explain that a friend was sick and dying and he needed to come be with her before he disappeared. The frenzied time when he’d come back to retrieve her had offered almost as little in the way of an explanation, only that she was coming back here with him. They’d been silent for most of the long ride.

The meal plods quietly on as the adults give her time to process.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Moving from the house towards the well, Loki looks around and shakes his head as he spots the carcass of a wild hog near the edge of the field. The belly is torn open and the entrails missing, and there’s practically no blood staining the snow around it, so he knows Mimir had hunted it elsewhere, disemboweled the thing, and likely ate all of the soft organs for his breakfast before hauling it back here. Mimir himself is nowhere to be found, but Loki isn’t surprised. The beast quite enjoys having the extensive wood and mountains to roam as he pleases.

This isn’t the first carcass he’s brought home for them by any means, but the last had been only a few days before, the first day Darcy had been here. Usually, Mimir only brings it to them if he happens to catch something particularly large, claiming the smaller prizes for himself and leaving whatever remains to scavengers and the elements.

Now, Loki will not be at all surprised if his mount takes to bringing them fresh meat every few days. By times, he thinks that Mimir genuinely believes Darcy to be a cub instead of a child. Before, Loki would check Asta’s usual traps and snares whilst out hunting himself, bringing them whatever meat they needed for a day or two at a time, but it appears that, with Darcy now here, Mimir has deemed Loki’s (perfectly successful) efforts to be inadequate and taken it upon himself to make sure his favorite of them is well-provided-for. They still have more than a day’s worth of meat left from the stag Mimir had brought four days ago, and now Loki will need to come back out to butcher the hog before it freezes.

But first, water.

Setting the wooden tub on the ledge of the well, he draws up three buckets of water to fill it before heaving it back up to take inside. He’s quite ignored by the ladies in the house as he returns and sets the water in its place at the end of the food bench, which holds the loaves of bread-dough Asta had been teaching Darcy to make in her family’s traditional way earlier, slowly rising. Asta in the present is upstairs sorting through the storage trunks looking for something or other, whilst Darcy sits reclined on one of the poufs by the fire, a few different books open in her lap and balanced on the pouf surrounding her small form, her notetaking journal resting open on one knee while her pen stays at the ready while she reads through something with a furrowed brow.

Without a word, he collects what he needs to go dismantle the hog then exits again, trying not to worry. Darcy has been rather quiet since they had told her that, legally, she will be their child. He managed to escape explaining what her title will be - the question that had started that conversation - but he knows that won’t last forever. 

His thoughts on the matter are hard to sort out, and he’s had weeks; he can’t really blame her for needing time to wrap her head around it.

The idea of being a father.... Well, he’s technically been raising her for some time now, but it hadn’t really occurred to him that he was essentially already acting as her parent until Asta had pointed it out in one of their many conversations on the matter in the past few weeks. Loki isn’t certain if he’s really ready for the responsibility when put in that context, but he hasn’t a choice. Not that he would turn her or any child of his away regardless of his mental preparedness. But he hadn’t been expecting to be simultaneously losing one of his dearest friends and becoming - officially - father to a 633 year old child.

His parents are going to be furious. Well, Odin will be furious. Frigga will be stunned, then elated, whilst maintaining a mask of disappointment for his father’s sake, at least in the beginning. She’ll drop it fairly quickly, however. There’s no way she will be able to hide her joy at having a princess running around the palace.

He can practically already see the multitude of dresses and hair decorations and sweets and other miscellaneous gifts that are going to be showered upon Darcy in the not-so-distant future.

Eventually, his mother is bound to realize something is amiss, with the timeline if nothing else since she did unknowingly encounter them the one time and she’ll inevitably put that event together and realize it was he and Darcy, and Hulda is certain to recognize the jewelry pieces he’d commissioned and say somewhat to Frigga, but he’s nearly certain that Frigga won’t call it to attention. She knows him well enough to trust that he has his reasons. And, he supposes, if it comes to it, he could claim that Asta told him a year ago and he’d actually had Darcy with him for some moons whilst she attempted to seek treatment or some such. That he had kept her secret before whenever they choose to reveal her because he didn’t want to overwhelm her as she was already losing her mother.

Yes, that could work....

It’s not as though there will be any way to prove Darcy isn’t his. Light Elves and Aesir are so similar, biologically, that it would take extensive testing to determine she is only Aesir, which likely wouldn’t even be statistically conclusive given they also will have no sample of Asta’s makeup to see if she may or may not be part Aesir. And there is no way to reliably test their individual makeup to compare and determine paternity. There are some UNreliable tests, but that is a thing he can lean into if Odin brings it to that. The only reliable tests they have compare the child’s magic to the parent, and Loki isn’t worried about that. Their magic is quite similar anyhow, but the documents Asta draws up will be magically binding as well as legally. As soon as he signs them, pouring his magic into the signature, acknowledging Darcy as his legitimate child, it is likely to get even more so.

He’s nearly through breaking the hog into legs and quarters when Mimir casually strolls back into the clearing. Giving his mount an annoyed look, he questions him, “You couldn’t have dropped it closer to the icebox?”

Mimir’s only reply is to give him a haughty look in return before turning to go into the house. 

Shaking his head, Loki makes the final few cuts before picking up two hunks of meat and bone and heading for the well, which has a large wooden box next to it, meant specifically for freezing meat while also protecting it from the elements. It’s empty at the moment, the last of the stag having been taken inside to thaw earlier in the morning, so he makes short work of arranging the bits, then using the water bucket to gather snow and dumping it in over and around them, creating a firm-packed layer before moving to fetch more.

It’s times like these that he has the passing thought that a simple life like this would be nice. Simple work maintaining a house, growing crops in the warm seasons, hunting for food, working to preserve it, a partner and a child to retreat to when the work is done for the day....

He knows it wouldn’t satisfy him in the long term, but it’s pleasant to think about occasionally.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Laying in her bed, Asta listens to the movements below as she dozes. Loki has taken to disabling the in-built muffling charms around their bedroom during the day, so he or Darcy will be certain to hear her if she needs anything.

While Loki is either writing or drawing - she can’t quite tell just from the sound - Darcy is plucking softly at Asta’s lute, playing simple tunes on it being one of the things Asta has insisted upon teaching the girl. No minstrel, she had told Loki firmly, would ever allow a child to grow up in their household without teaching them to play some sort of instrument and likely sing. The singing lessons had been difficult, more and more so as time went on and Asta’s energy continued to wane, but Darcy now knows all of the nursery songs Asta had learned when she was small, as well as a few other simpler songs. 

Loki’s herbal concoction does as he’d promised, greatly reducing the constant aching and soreness in her intestines, and also allowed her the dignity of not being completely incontinent as her mother had been by this point of her own illness, but there’s simply nothing to be done for her energy. Energizing teas do little but keep her mind alert as her body continues to demand sleep, and she can no longer move up or down the stairs on her own. She can eat hardly a babe’s portion of food at a time before she feels ill. Her time to pass is rapidly approaching.

She accepted this as her fate long ago, has been trying to mentally and emotionally prepare for it nearly since her own mother passed. She’d been ready for it, even. Genuinely.

What Asta had not counted on was the man she never allowed herself to admit she loves bringing this small girl into her home and heart. When she suggested it, her only thought had been to perhaps make her last true act in this life one to help her love when he was clearly struggling with something. It never occurred to her until just the past few days that she ended up doing the thing she swore she never would - creating a family to leave behind grieving for her.

For Darcy is so very like Loki. It had been like breathing to link the two and for Darcy to simply BE Loki’s daughter in Asta’s mind. And, from there, even easier to begin loving the girl, first as the daughter of her beloved, then as her own as they became closer and Asta and Loki signed the birth record documents, making Darcy both legally and magically their child. And Darcy, too, had begun to take on some of Asta’s qualities, though they may have been there to begin with and just not noticeable at first. She has an ear for pitch and rhythm, and, though instruments don’t come to her naturally, she could be a talented singer if she continues to work at it. Darcy’s greatest joys are immersing herself in books and research, mind constantly whirring and spinning - like Loki - and galavanting about the forest exploring - much like Asta in her girlhood. She’s wonderful with animals; Mimir positively dotes upon the child, and Asta has witness wildlife that would typically run away at the sight of a person instead calmly walk right up to Darcy to be pet.

Though that trait seems to be unique to Darcy, not taken from either Asta or Loki.

The final note to create the tune of loving the girl, though, had been the occasion about a moon ago when Darcy herself pointed out that she probably wouldn’t have grown up to this point calling her Asta, and she likely would not have been introduced to Loki as ‘Loki’. After a short conversation, she had switched to calling them Mama and Papa to accustom herself to it, and Asta doesn’t think she could feel more like the girl’s mother if she actually had given birth to her.

Below, she hears Darcy cease her playing and ask Loki a question. He’s answering by the time Asta has pulled herself from her thoughts.

“Do you wish to not live at the palace any longer?” he questions back. Darcy must have asked about their living arrangements once they return to Asgard.

“I don’t really care, but I think if I actually had lived here my whole life, then the size and activity of the palace might be a bit much to jump directly into.” Darcy replies. “But the city house is in a quiet area, and would be an easier adjustment, even though it’s still bigger than here. Maybe we could stay at the house and you leave me in your rooms at the palace during the day while you train and attend your duties? I know Frigga will have me doing things once I’m revealed, but until then...” 

It’s a smart observation, not that Asta would expect anything else at this point. The “city house” she’s referring to is one that Asta knows Loki had bought some time ago when he’d been seriously considering marrying Sigrun, his one-time partner. He’s only told her about it once, of an occasion not long after Sigrun had spurned him, and it was in the midst of him venting his frustrations about his family, telling her he was tempted to step back from the royal family entirely and move his academic work to the collegium that the house is near.

She hears Loki sigh and cease whatever he’d been doing, thinking it over. After several long moments, he concurs. “You’re right, that would be overwhelming for a grieving child who’d never been around more than two people at a time before. And in that situation, I would certainly not be alright with leaving you alone at the house, so the logical thing would be for me to leave you in my rooms with some things to occupy you until I was through for the day.” After a thoughtful-feeling pause, Loki continues, declaring, “We will return to the palace to pack some things, then get settled in the house before I inform any of my return to Asgard. I have only a few items there, so I will need quite a bit from my room, and we’ll need to move most of your things.”

“How long do you think we should keep me secret for?” Darcy questions.

“A few moons, perhaps,” Loki replies, sounding distracted as he considers it. “Long enough for you to have made a decent adjustment, but not so long as to seem as though I am hiding you. Perhaps we can reveal you shortly before the Harvest Festival, and that will be your official debut to the realm.”

Asta laughs softly at the mention of the debut. She hadn’t let him get away with distracting them from her question about what Darcy will be in Asgard for very long, and he had reluctantly explained that there is no further diminishing titles between Prince and the various levels of Lord or Lady; that all with a direct connection to the throne who are not the King or Queen are titled as Prince or Princess. She’d been less amused to find out that he’s already worried that a few of his cousins are going to take exception to being bumped even further down the line of succession and try to take it out on Darcy.

And to think he’s been concerned that he won’t be a good father, or that he isn’t ready. It had taken Asta some time to get him to stop fretting about that and just do it, not worried at all after seeing them interact for all of half a day.

Loki doesn’t realize, but he’s already a fantastic father. Darcy’s safety, wellbeing, and happiness are always his first priority, and he’s so incredibly sweet with her. She’ll climb into his lap for a cuddle, and he’ll kiss her hair and talk softly to her about whatever crosses their minds. He’ll pull her close to his side to explain some diagram or other in one of the many magical theory books he’d brought. Asta’s favorite thing to watch is when Darcy comes back from the bathing springs and Loki gently brushes the tangles from her hair and fixes it in some intricately braided style. 

Asta had begun making him do HER hair as well when she’d seen that, and he’d smilingly told her about learning to do his mother’s hair when he was a boy and would be constantly underfoot while Frigga and her various Ladies in Waiting would be helping one another prepare for some formal event or another.

There’s been points over these past two moons that it had been disturbingly easy to picture him with an infant or smaller child, doting over them proudly, warming and breaking her heart in equal measure.

Picturing it again as the pair below go back to their activities, Asta feels a few tears roll down her cheeks. She doesn’t want to leave them. She’s only just gotten them.


	13. Chapter 13

On the return journey to Asgard, Darcy doesn’t try to make Loki go as quickly as he normally would as she had on the trip to Alfheim. 

She’s more used to riding for longer periods of time now, having spent many days through the cold season upon Mimir’s back, exploring the seemingly endless forest around their little clearing. And she’s not exactly eager to leave Alfheim. Darcy had seen relatively very little of it, but the small house in the massive wood had grown to feeling like home the past three moons. Never has she seen Loki nearly so relaxed, even as he worried and fretted over Asta. He’d fully embraced being her father, and she and Asta had grown quite close as well, despite Asta’s failing health.

Tears appear in Darcy’s eyes yet again as Mimir marches them steadily, but not quickly, toward the portal even deeper in the mountains.

Asta had passed nearly a moon ago, just over two moons after Darcy arrived, and she’s nowhere near even starting to be okay. It’s officially the planting season now, and she finds herself resenting the signs of returning life as they wind through the dense forest. Why should flowers be rising up through the melting snow when Asta isn’t here to enjoy them? How can the birds sing and build nests and lay eggs mere steps from the charred earth where Loki had made Asta’s funeral pyre? It’s dumb and unfair and it doesn’t make any sense to her.

Loki had done his best to explain, around his own very raw emotions, that Asta’s thread in the tapestry of fate had simply run out, and it was her time to move on to the next life whilst everyone else’s threads wind on, but the words had sounded hollow. She still doesn’t quite understand who, precisely, the Norns are, but she hates them.

They’ve spent a lot of the past few weeks crying.

After a few days, Loki had forced himself to snap out of their mutual despair and begun very slowly sorting through the house. Some things of Asta’s, he packed into the bags that would also carry their things home - her jewelry, books, the small lute and set of pipes from the collection of instruments, a couple favored pieces of clothing, a soft, warm quilt - basically because he knew Darcy would want them, and it would be weird for her to not bring anything of her recently deceased mother back to Asgard with them. The rest, he carefully packed mostly into the storage trunks in the open area upstairs, resetting the old preservation spells, then systematically setting the same spells over everything that wasn’t being packed away. 

They ate down the last of the cold season stockpile of food, made sure the window-coverings were all totally secure, and eventually packed their own things. Loki had had Darcy help set security wards over both the house and the clearing, explaining the basic theory and that they’ll still come back for visits from time to time, but that he shouldn’t keep dawdling and putting off returning to his duties.

She doesn’t know if she sniffled and didn’t notice or what, but Loki seems to know another wave of emotions had hit, as he removes one hand from where he’s loosely gripping the harness in front of her, wrapping his forearm around her tummy and pulling her backward into him for a cuddle without stopping Mimir. 

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Loki doesn’t bother holding back a sigh as he watches Darcy disappear into her rooms off of his. She’d become quite attached to Asta very quickly, and he knows she isn’t terribly happy to be back in Asgard already. He also knows that that’s partially to do with having had freedom to roam for three moons, then suddenly having an emotional upheaval, only to be marched back to the gilded cage of their existence in Asgard, where she has little freedom to go anywhere.

He’s not particularly relishing being back either, facing returning to the daily drudgery of eat-train-eat-paperwork-and-meetings-eat-sleep. 

And yes, he’s aware that he’s being a bit dramatic with that particular reaction. Loki has never been accused of not enjoying a bit of drama, and in his own head is no exception. As long as he’s aware of it, he doesn’t see a problem.

More realistically, he knows he still has quite a long way to go in the grieving process, and Darcy does as well, and getting back to day-to-day life is going to be difficult and painful for the both of them for some time. He generally enjoys his duties, and his training. He’s just still in that first blow of grief where it simply feels wrong to keep going on with normal life, as though part of his world hadn’t just been shredded and thrown to the void.

His eyes slowly meander over his sitting and dining room, taking in the slightly dusty and barren space. It’s been some time since he’s been away long enough to have them looking like this. Probably over a century. It just looks... off. That will fade, he knows. Once he’s publicly back and has aired the rooms out, done a bit of cleaning, retrieved his plants from his mother.

Moving to set his travel pack on the table, he begins unpacking it, categorizing everything into groups as he stacks it in piles around the table, noting what can be put away here for the moment and what should go right back in to take to the house out in the city. Not everything needs to go straight away; they’ll be here daily, they can move a bit each day very easily. But there’s no point in putting some things away just to put them back in a bag again tomorrow when they make the first trip to the house. He’d already told Darcy to only unpack her books and things that would be staying here, and anything that she needs specifically for the rest of today and the night.

Soon enough, his grooming items and clothing are all packed back into the bag - he has extras of everything in his bathing chamber already and plenty of clothes in the wardrobe-, and he’s distributing the rest in the general places it needs to go.

Once that chore is done, he wanders around, sending sweeping wave of magic over various surfaces to pull up most of the dust that’s settled, sending it all to form a neat pile next to the door to the balcony to be sent out over the edge tomorrow when he starts properly cleaning and opening his rooms back up. As he passes by the half-ajar door to Darcy’s rooms, he notes the distant sound of running water and knows she’s probably showering. They’ve been riding for the better part of three days, making camp the first night about two-thirds of the way to the portal on the Alfheim side, and the second night about a third of the way between the Asgard side and Asgard City. After taking their time getting moving this morning and a fairly leisurely pace the rest of the way to the palace, it’s nearly time for the evening meal.

The pace hadn’t actually been purposeful on his part. Mimir had stubbornly stretched the amount of time it took. Loki isn’t sure if he knew their reluctance to get back or if he knew that returning to the palace would mean substantially less time with Darcy and selfishly wanted to prolong the final portion of the ride back.

After getting a fire lit, he decides that bathing sounds like a fantastic idea.

The bathing chamber feels wrong when he enters it, but, again, that’s no surprise to him. Bathing staying at Asta’s house had been done in some nearby natural hot wellsprings; the switch from the openness of the forest to four relatively close walls, and a smoothly-carved bathtub with a tap or a shower that rains water down in an unnatural pattern is jarring. Looking between his two options, Loki opts for the shower, if only for expediency, and moves to start the water before tiredly pulling his travel clothing off and tossing it in the general direction of the basin to be washed.

It’s only once he’s under the hot spray that he lets go of the stranglehold he’s had on his emotions for the past few days. He hadn’t wanted to make coming back any worse for Darcy than it was already, so he’d done his best to put on a brave mask for her. 

His tears mix with the water running over him, and he knows his sobs will be covered by the sound of it and two closed doors between the shower and the sitting room. 

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

“It’s not like the prince to cut his training short,” the voice of one of the palace guards in the soldiers’ baths nearby catches Hogun’s attention.

“He was gone for more than a season,” one of the other nearby men replies, “He likely has quite a bit to catch up on within the palace.”

“His form looked a bit off as well,” yet another chimes in, “Like he hasn’t been training properly for that time, or as though he’s very tired. Either way, he’d only risk injuring himself jumping directly back into a full training routine.”

Noises of agreement see the conversation turning to something Hogun doesn’t care about as he goes about finishing his own bath after morning training. So. Loki’s back. Thor hasn’t come in from the yard yet, so Hogun doubts he knows his brother has returned. He expects it will be an interesting time.

He’d quietly disapproved of how Thor and the others in their little group had begun acting toward Loki last harvest season, after Odin reprimanded Thor (and them by extension), comparing him unfavorably to Loki. Besides the immaturity, Odin was right that their by then longtime behavior was unbecoming of their collective stations, and it’s likely nothing that hadn’t happened to Loki in the reverse direction countless times over the course of their lives. But it’s the first time Thor had ever heard a comparison between he and his brother and been the one found wanting, so he’d been quite upset.

Being a bit older than the rest of them, having a wife and a family to keep him more grounded, Hogun had found himself appropriately chastised, and his wife quite a bit happier to have him home more evenings than out carousing.

Now, privy to the reason for Loki’s recent absence, he has nothing but sympathy for him where once there had been pity and slight derision for the standoffish prince. ‘Tis never easy to lose anyone dear to you, and he suspects the friend that Loki had suddenly disappeared to care for had been extremely dear to Loki. He has no reason to think such, truly, except the fact that Loki did so urgently away to them, but he just has a feeling in his gut. To nurse a beloved friend through their final days, tend the funerary rites, and settle their estate... Hogun selfishly thinks it’s easier, in a way, to lose comrades in battle. He’s lost friends in battle before, having been newly enlisted in the Vanir army when the frost giants had been vying for the crown of their realm and trying to prove themselves by attacking other realms.

To lose a comrade in battle is a sudden thing, but there is too much else happening to have time to be shocked or pained, and you went in knowing it was a distinct possibility. The later-onset pain of the loss is tempered by the mixed relief and guilt that it wasn’t you. Watching them slowly fade to illness, with nothing but time to know you’re losing them, and watching them suffer through their long death sounds so much worse.

Removing himself from the bathing pool, Hogun makes quick work of washing his training clothes in one of the basins off to the side of the room before hanging them on the hooks in his assigned storage space to dry, and getting dressed in the clothes he’d left there before training this morning.

As he’s exiting, he runs into Thor - almost literally - on his way in, Fandral close behind. Even as he moves to the side to let his friends come in first, he mutters the news. “Loki’s returned.”

Thor looks surprised, obviously not having heard yet, and mutters a thanks before moving to wash himself.

Hogun goes on his way, hoping for Thor’s sake and Loki’s as well, that he’s truly learned the lesson Odin wanted him to, particularly whilst Loki was away. He seems to have, but only time will tell.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

When Loki doesn’t appear at the midday meal, Frigga finishes her own quickly before dismissing herself. One of her maids had mentioned seeing him on the training yard on her way in this morn, and she’d overheard a few pages talking about him only taking a short training session, so Frigga had expected him to make an appearance.

There’s only a couple places he’s likely to be, so she sets off first for the nearest and most likely - his public chambers in the administration wing.

Despite them being for him to take smaller meetings and such, he never does, bar the odd occasion she or Odin go in there to speak with him privately. He prefers to use the surrounding meeting room and halls, leaving his workspace relatively quiet and private. She’s been in there a fair amount these past few moons, sorting and organizing the small mountain of reports, meeting notes, budget summaries, and various other miscellany that the clerics leave for him in a way that she knows he prefers. It’s a good thing she’d done it, as well, as many petitions and proposals had still managed to make their way to his desk despite the instruction to deliver them to her instead. 

Her time had become increasingly free the past few centuries as he took on more and more of the responsibilities that had previously been her domain, so she’s more than familiar enough to bridge the gap for a time whilst he’s away. She’d also taken the opportunity to attempt to begin teaching Thor how to handle some of it, and tried to hide her slight despair when he struggled immensely with understanding all the contributing factors and nuances of a given document. 

She hadn’t expected him to know what he was doing straight off, but she hadn’t anticipated him struggling quite as much as he had. He’s never had a head for politics, perpetually a bit too trusting and, in a way, childlike to truly grasp them, but there had been a hope he would grow out of it. Now, she fears it may take something rather drastic to force him to see the need to take it seriously and learn that nothing should be accepted at face value.

The wing itself is rather empty, most still down in the dining hall for the midday meal, and Frigga strides quickly through it to her son’s chamber, finding the door slightly ajar.

It lets out a slight squeak as she pushes it open, Loki leaving it there deliberately so he’ll have no chance of not noticing someone entering. He looks up as she steps in and closes the door behind her, giving her a slightly pathetic attempt at a smile before he stands to greet her. “Hello, mother,” he says quietly, stepping over to kiss her cheek and accept a hug. He returns it tightly, pressing his face into her hair and breathing deeply, obviously trying not to allow his emotions to overcome him.

Eventually, his grip around her loosens and they step back from one another slightly, allowing Frigga to get a proper look at him. “You’ve not been sleeping,” she states, raising a hand to cup his face, thumb brushing gently over the signs of exhaustion around his eyes.

No point in asking how he’s doing. He won’t tell her. Stating what she can see is her best recourse to gleaning further information on his state.

“Not well,” he agrees tiredly before motioning her over to the two stuffed chairs by the small hearth.

He looks it and then some. His face is drawn, and a bit pale, his shoulders sag down rather than being held firmly level in his normally perfect posture, drilled into him by Odin and the various combat trainers over many centuries. Even his hair is telling, longer than he would typically wear it, and loose in its natural curl rather than slicked smoothly back in his usual style, as though he just hadn’t the energy to bother with it after bathing.

“How long has it been?” she asks, knowing he would only have returned because the friend he’d gone to care for had passed and the affairs had been settled.

Pain ghosts over his features, making her heart ache for him. “Nearly a moon. It took some time to pull myself from my grief enough to finish my task.”

“You were close,” she states sadly. Frigga hadn’t realized quite how close until just now, and she’s still uncertain. He wouldn’t flee so abruptly for just anyone, but she can’t recall ever hearing about this friend before, so she’d had no reference to gauge against.

“Yes,” he confirms. “You remember my first official ambassadorial trip? To Alfheim for half a year?” She nods, remembering it well. It had been when she realized that Loki would be the one to take over many of her duties, it having gone so well. “I got lost in the mountains on a hunting trip early on, and stumbled across Asta’s small homestead near dusk. She offered hospitality for the night and got me back to the road and the city safely. I went back at the next opportunity to bring her a gift of thanks, and we had occasion to get to know one another enough for me to continue visiting her when I was free from other obligations for the remainder of my trip. We’ve remained in contact since, though not seen one another face-to-face until she called for me.”

“By times, knowing someone through letters can be even more intimate than speaking sitting next to them,” she muses sadly, “‘Tis often easier to be open to a piece of paper than to speak words allowed to their face.”

Loki swallows thickly, nodding and looking into the hearth, which is lit for the first time in moons, but banked low.

She doesn’t speak on her suspicion that the woman had been a lover during that first trip to Alfheim. Besides it not being any of her business, he had stated plainly that the relationship, if it was that, had been strictly through post since that time. No sense in dredging up old trysts when he’s already hurting so. “Tell me about her,” Frigga gently requests.

Lids fall tightly over the brilliant green eyes, and his brow furrows. After a few deep breaths, he opens them again, looking to her pleadingly. “I have much to do. I cannot give in to my emotions so early in the day, else I will cease to be even slightly useful for the entire rest of it.”

Frigga huffs, but doesn’t push. If he doesn’t want to be overcome lest he be unable to resume catching up on all he missed, it isn’t her place to demand he cease the activity and tend to his grief. She may be his mother, but he’s a grown man, who’s proven himself quite mature and capable. Battles must be chosen carefully with him. At least he’s acknowledging the emotions and, presumably, letting them be free when he’s in private.

There is one thing she can pester him about, however. “Will you at least eat somewhat? I came now because I expected you at the meal and you didn’t appear.”

This, surprisingly, draws a thin smile from him. “I took a meal in my chambers after training and before coming down here.” he promises her. “I simply don’t feel prepared to face a large dining hall just yet.”

Thus assured that he’s at least seeing to his most basic needs without prompting, Frigga gives up her insistence. “Is there aught I might help you with?” she asks instead, nodding towards the desk, covered in stacks and bundles of paper - of her doing - creating an organized chaos over the surface.

Another wan smile, and he tells her, “You have done more than enough already. I simply need to familiarize myself, then file it away. I should have my duties back from you within a week or so.”

Frigga accepts the promise without fuss, knowing both that he will be taking back over whether she believes him ready to or not, and that he can probably use the distraction. If he’s determined to get on with life even as he continues to grieve, that’s actually a good sign, much as the mother in her wishes he would take as much time as he needs to heal.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Loki groans to himself as he finally reaches the floor his rooms are on, wondering how it is he manages to forget the damnable number of stairs in the palace every single time he’s away for more than a week.

They’ve been back for nearly two weeks, and he’s been publicly back for one, but he still hasn’t re-accustomed to the constant navigation of stairs. Probably because he’s still so tired. With any luck, tonight will be one that both he and Darcy are too exhausted to dream. When he finally manages to fall asleep these days, he ends up being met with painful memories of Asta and random other things mixed together. More often than not lately, Darcy comes to him in the middle of the night complaining of bad dreams and asking to sleep with him. Neither of them are even close to properly rested.

He knows it’s showing quite obviously as well. Most are discreet about it, but he’s heard people wondering about his abbreviated training in the mornings, usually doing half or less than he typically does, and he’d overheard a few of the kitchen servants gossiping about him looking so tired every day, wondering if he’s ill, when he’d last been to the kitchen stores to stock up his food cupboard. And that’s just him.

Darcy’s even more exhausted than he is, and has become quite temperamental because of it, as well as the strong emotions that she has absolutely no experience coping with. Loki suspects that losing Asta had forced her to finally realize the reality of losing her Midgardian parents, as well as her brother. Despite them not being dead to his knowledge, it’s extremely unlikely she’ll ever see them again, so they effectively may as well be. He’d quickly become glad that they had planned for her to play the part of grieving and overwhelmed child who needed to be kept secret to cope for some time, because she has ended up actually being that and not needing to play the part at all.

At this rate, however, he isn’t certain that the vague timeline of telling his family after the planting season will be an appropriate amount of time for her to adjust. Additionally, he’s torn which direction that target should be moved. Would gaining grandparents and an uncle assist her in coping, with more support around her? Or would the inevitable awkwardness of three new people, all with very strong personalities, trying to get to know her whilst she’s still in some significant emotional turmoil just be another thing for her to be overwhelmed by?

He tables his thoughts again as he enters his rooms. 

Loki’s shoulders immediately relax in relief as he spots Darcy asleep on the sofa in front of his hearth, Asta’s quilt tucked around her and what looks to be some embroidery project on the low table in front of her. Despite her exhaustion, she’s been stubbornly resistant to attempting to nap during the day to help matters. She keeps insisting that she’s not a baby and doesn’t need a naptime.

It’s been difficult for him not to irritatedly argue back that he’s definitely not a baby but even he could use naps as of late. But he’s refrained, since, as the parent, by definition, he needs to be the responsible and mature one between them.

There’s an argument to be made about whether his own father was completely successful at that, but that’s a matter for a very different time.

Careful to keep his steps silent, he moves through the sitting room to go collect his laundering from his bathing chamber. He did his washing after returning from training this morn, so it should all be dry to take back. It’s most expedient for him to dress in his training clothes as he normally would before bringing them to the palace for the day, then ready for the day from his wardrobe here after. He’s taken about half his colder-weather clothes down to the house already, and a matching proportion of his various accessories and other miscellany, but he may as well just keep moving his warm-weather wardrobe one outfit at a time until he needs to start doing the reverse and shifting them back here to have them to dress in each day, or begin bringing them each morning.

Folding his training clothes and underthings into a satchel, he debates if they shouldn’t just stay here tonight. There’s really no reason they can’t, but Darcy may fuss about staying; she’s taken comfort from spending their evenings and nights in a space removed from the palace. On the other side of it, however, if she stays asleep for some time, it would probably be more beneficial to just leave her precisely where she is rather than risk waking her by moving her, even to her bed here.

By the time he’s done, he’s decided to see if she wakes up any time soon and make a decision at evening meal. If she’s still asleep at that point, he’ll leave her be and they’ll stay at the palace. If she wakes, he will take them home.

Hm.

Realizing that thought makes Loki pause. He didn’t realize he’s already started to think of the city house as home. Perhaps Darcy isn’t the only one taking comfort from that space.

He’s never spent much time at the house, frequently only staying there a few days at a time when the need to be out from under the hard scrutiny of his father for some time became too great to deny. The house had been associated with painful memories for most of the time he’s owned it. He’d bought it with the idea of he and Sigrun living there, only to find out that she was being unfaithful before he could even tell her about it and bring up the possibility of cohabitation.

The house is positively quaint in comparison to the palace, but is on the large side for a family dwelling in the city, with three decently-sized bedrooms as well as a study in addition to the common living space. Near one of the collegiums, it’s on a quiet street that gets few passerby, with most of the other residents either working at or attending the collegium, or having a workshop to practice their trade away from their home. There’s not even really families in the immediate area; the youngest people he can remember ever encountering there being apprentices, either boarding near the collegium or outright living with their masters for some reason or another.

Small chore complete, Loki stands in the doorway between his bedchamber and the main room, debating how to fill his free time until evening meal. He’s nearly done reading through documentation of all that had transpired from a legal perspective whilst he was away, and he’s already read so many meeting briefs today that his vision was swimming when he gave it up for the day. Dismissing any sort of reading, he settles on moving into his study to examine the status of his current to-do list, made because he’s too tired to mentally keep track.

Much of it is things outside of the palace, largely for finishing off the furnishing and such of the house. Some bits still left to get for the kitchen and the bathing chamber, furniture that needs to be commissioned for the study as well as for Darcy’s bedroom (a mattress pallet and basic wardrobe had been easy enough to get quickly, but that’s a temporary solution), fabric to make curtains, et cetera.

Seeing one of the lower items on the list makes him stand again and move back out to quietly pull open the cabinet they keep fabric in and examine what’s there.

Darcy has only three warmer-weather dresses that are really good enough for her to wear in public. They’ve both improved significantly with their sewing skills, and the few ‘passable’ attempts at the beginning are really no longer such in comparison, but he doesn’t think they’re salvageable to reuse the fabric as a different, better dress. Most likely, they’ll be turned into tunics and breeches, or more pajamas for Darcy. She doesn’t strictly NEED more dresses, but he’d like for her to have more, if only because it will be one less thing for Frigga to lecture him over when she eventually finds out she’s a grandmother. It won’t matter that Darcy prefers breeches and tunics, Frigga will insist that it is her having the options that’s important. If Darcy doesn’t have at least a week’s worth of dresses to pick from, he shall be chastised, regardless of the fact that Frigga will be happily sewing and embroidering new ones for Darcy near-immediately.

At least her cold-weather wardrobe is sufficient for the moment, he having made sure to expand it during the last harvest season when it became obvious it would be an exceptionally brutal cold season.

Taking note of what they have as he sorts through the mostly-scrap fabric in the cupboard, he retreats back to his study to add a note under the one for fabric shopping to make curtains to get more clothing fabric while he’s at it. Wracking his brain, he spends more time than he realizes thinking through everything they have and everything they’ll need, jotting down a few more things on his shopping list before his stomach alerts him that he needs to eat something.

Emerging again from his study, he finds dusk settling outside the windows, and Darcy still soundly asleep on the sofa. Staying here tonight, then. He won’t chance waking her when she seems to be getting the first solid sleep in several weeks.

Instead, he carefully pulls out something to make himself a quick and quiet meal, and eats it out on the balcony. Once he’s done and the few dishes washed and left to dry in his bathing chamber, Loki decides that it most certainly is time for him to retreat to bed as well. It’s not as though he doesn’t need it as much as his daughter.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Seeing his mount’s ears flicker over in a particular direction, upright to listen intently to something, Thor follows his gaze, but sees nothing of interest. 

He’s riding Audun through the wood near the city, looking for his brother. Despite his best efforts to try to draw Loki out of his obvious grief, Loki has stubbornly refused to join Thor and his friends for any activity. Loki hadn’t been at training today, and one of the stable-hands had mentioned that he’d left shortly after the morning session began, taking Mimir out for a ride, when Thor inquired if his brother had been seen.

As Loki hadn’t returned for the midday meal, Thor had come out here, where they had played as boys, when they were just old enough to be allowed out on their own (with a guard to keep a distant eye on them) for part of a day at a time. He hoped to stumble across Loki and at the very least have a proper conversation.

He’d realized whilst Loki was away that they hadn’t truly spoken in years. Not casually, and not alone. The realization had, he’s willing to admit, rather upset him. He shouldn’t be going years without speaking to his brother, whom he sees at least in passing most days.

And he misses Loki.

After the very serious dressing-down he’d gotten from his father last harvest season, he’d been irate at having his freedoms and privileges limited, being dictated to like a child when he was to be allowed out of the palace and how much money he’d be allowed to spend, told to be more like his brother - a distinct turnabout from the usual rhetoric of Odin telling Loki to be more like him. Eventually, once the ire had passed and he’d suddenly been responsible for some of that which Loki usually takes care of as his brother was away to tend the final days of a dying friend, it had occurred to him that Loki has quite a few more duties than he does. Which hadn’t seemed very fair.

Then, the pieces had fallen into his place. All that his father had been saying about responsibility and duty, trying to emulate at least part of how Loki behaves.... Father had been telling him that he needs to get himself in line and caught up to the amount of responsibility Loki has taken on the past few centuries, else risk falling out of consideration for the crown entirely.

And, after only a season doing less than half of what his brother typically does, Thor began wondering if perhaps Loki wouldn’t be better for it even if Thor did begin meeting his duties properly. Having their mother sit next to him and explain, line by line, a request for funding from one of the collegiums to support some sort of medical research had been an eye-opening experience in more than one way. To start, how out of touch he is with so many things that are happening in the realm. Also, that she certainly doesn’t have to do that for Loki, nor would she offer her advice on how he should rule on the petition and why. Loki was simply trusted to understand it and make an appropriate decision, further driving home their father’s point. 

It had also sparked a new sort of respect for his brother. It would be utterly impossible to be unaware of Loki’s intelligence, but Thor hadn’t realized he’d become so learned in matters of government, nor how dedicated he must have been to apply himself to his duties sufficiently to warrant that level of trust. All while Thor had been galavanting about doing quite a bit of nothing useful.

And it’s proving rather difficult to rekindle their once-close bond now that he’s more aware. Loki seems to be always occupied with somewhat that cannot be put off, then disappears as soon as the task is complete and before Thor can attempt to speak to him again.

Deciding to see what Audun is hearing, he gives the signal to follow the noise. Audun does so, stepping interestedly through the trees and up a hill, but not rushing. Thor hears it as they approach the crest of the hill, as well as the treeline - Loki’s laughter, loud and more carefree than he’s heard it since they were children. Followed by.... a child’s laughter?

Signalling his mount to stop, he dismounts and orders Audun to stay in place as he carefully creeps forward, being certain to keep his steps silent and remain firmly in the shadowed places under the canopy of the trees, avoiding the beams of sunlight breaking through.

The sight that greets him in the clearing beyond the treeline makes little sense. Loki sits on a sheet near the middle, various things around him including his drawing supplies, what looks to be the remnants of a meal, Mimir’s riding harness, his traveling rucksack, and... a child. A girl. A small girl with inky-black hair, curling down over her shoulders where it hasn’t been braided back in a style that Thor vividly remembers watching Loki learn to do on Frigga’s hair when they were boys.

Loki grins widely as the girl stands at the corner of the sheet, her hands raised and waving about slightly as she grins happily herself. Following their gaze, he finds Mimir, Loki’s notoriously grouchy mount, hopping about like a giddy juvenile himself, chasing purple lights that zip around the clearing, obviously for the purpose of him chasing them.

No matter how long Thor looks, none of it makes sense.

The lights are the wrong color. Mimir probably hasn’t behaved like that since he began training long before he’d even been selected for Loki. Who the girl is. The girl being out here with Loki and Mimir. 

“Leave him be,” Loki says fondly after some time watching Mimir dart and jump about. “He still has the trek all the way back to the city later. We don’t need to be tiring him out.” Another thing that doesn’t make sense. Mimir’s still a fairly young mount, he could be at his play until evening mealtime and still make the easy trip back to the city and stables without issue.

Thor’s mind shifts abruptly from a morass of confusion to utterly blank at the girl’s response.

“But we’re having fun, papa!” she says on another tinkling laugh as Mimir makes a particularly amusing maneuver to try and catch one of the lights.

Papa?

What-

How-

Thor feels his jaw physically drop open as the girl twists her head to look back at Loki with a slight pout, and even from this distance he can see that her eyes are no less vibrant in color than Loki’s, though the shade of green is quite different. Nearly blue.

But-

Slowly - so slowly - pictures begin to coalesce in his mind as Loki smilingly tells her again and her hands drop, the lights for Mimir disappearing as she steps back to the center of the sheet and takes the waterskin Loki holds up for her.

Loki’s chronic solitude, his irritability at anything that might unduly keep him from it. The girl’s obvious ability with magic even so young, just like Loki when they were small. Her coloring. Had Loki discovered some bygone affair had produced a child? It’s the only explanation he can think of, no matter how uncharacteristic it is of his brother to be so careless. Thor himself dreads the rather distinct possibility of such a day meeting him, as he’s fully aware that he’s less than diligent about remembering to use the spells to prevent such that Frigga had insisted he and Loki both learn shortly after they reached adolescence. And this child has to be... what, at least 500. Probably a bit older. Loki would not have been able to keep a child secret for that length of time. He has to have found out rather recently. Was this something to do with the woman Loki had gone to care for through the cold season? It would certainly explain why Loki has been so reluctant to spend time with anyone once his time is free of a day, particularly since he returned.

But why not tell them? Alright, Thor can see why Loki might not tell HIM, their relationship being as it has been for so long now, but their parents, surely. Frigga will have a conniption when this is revealed, and Odin... Thor does not envy his brother that conversation one bit.

Realizing he needs to go before Mimir calms enough to notice him, Thor silently hurries back to Audun and remounts, steering him back down the hill. Once they’re out of earshot, he mutters, “Home, Audun.” and lets his mount carry him back toward the palace as his thoughts collide and fragment only to partially reform and collide again, attempting to ascertain what, precisely, is going on.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Darcy is careful to make herself go slowly, despite her nerves making her want to finish this project quickly. She’s working on embroidering a bunch of colorful flowers onto one of her older dresses in a light green color. She had described the color as “toothpaste-y - but pretty” when he first pulled it out for them to make her a dress.... almost two you years ago?... and Loki hadn’t understood. Some very confused back and forth later had led to her discovering that it wasn’t that he’d just forgotten a toothbrush or whatever for her - Asgardians don’t brush their teeth. Or floss. Apparently they have some mouthwash-like tonics that they use sometimes if they have particularly bad breath, but other than that... nothing. Loki had never even heard of the possibility of cavities before and looked vaguely concerned at the concept.

Anyway, she knows she’s not going to finish her project today. Probably not even in the next couple weeks, though she thinks it’ll probably be done before the harvest season. She’s been working on it on-and-off since this time last year. All of the hems are densely lined with flowers in red, yellow, orange, pink, purple, even some in blue. Now she’s working on adding more, slowly spacing them out as she moves further and further from the hems. It’s a lot of flowers.

But she’s anxious about it because it’s her prettiest dress, and the one she plans to wear when she meets Loki’s family soon. Her family. Their family. She still isn’t quite used to that.

She’s at home alone right now. Well, kind of alone. Mimir is napping out on the back porch where he’s shaded from the sun but can still enjoy the slight breeze; she can see him through the open door. Loki wouldn’t normally leave her here alone for longer than it took for him to run an errand, but he’d left her today, saying he doesn’t want her in the palace when he tells his parents about her. Not that he thinks they would do anything to her, but just in case something unpredictable happens.

He’s actually probably telling them right now, she thinks, looking at the hourglass-clock on the mantel. She’d never noticed the ones in Loki’s rooms before, as he has them in his bedroom and study (both places she doesn’t go much), and it hadn’t occurred to him until they moved here and she asked about it that he should probably teach her to tell time on it. Apparently few outside of the military and certain divisions of the palace staff bother with timekeeping, most people just saying a much more general time in relation to the meals throughout the day.

She’s getting distracted again.

It’s just past midday. Loki pre-arranged to have a private meeting with his parents today so he could tell them about her. 

Darcy isn’t totally sure how she feels about meeting them, besides, obviously, nervous. Loki promised her that Thor had gotten in trouble and has been much better behaved lately than he was when they had run into him at the inn one time. She’s trying to not hold the one time against him. As for his parents, Loki had been as reassuring as possible while also trying to set realistic expectations. He’d said that Odin will likely take a bit to warm up to her, and that Frigga will likely be a bit overbearing with how happy she is, once the shock wears off.

That doesn’t really tell her how they’re going to react, or are already reacting, when he tells them right now, though. She really hopes he doesn’t get in trouble because of her.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Loki sits rigidly in the chair he’d taken in his father’s chambers, both of his parents on a sofa on the far side of a low table. Trying not to fidget, he focuses instead on keeping his breathing steady as they absorb the information he’d just presented them.

Between them, they hold the various documents he’d set on the table for them to see as he’d broken the news that they’re grandparents. Their eyes move back and forth from sheet of paper to another to another. Neither has said a word since he finished talking, spinning the tale that he and Darcy had been rehearsing for weeks; ever just after her natality when he’d spoken to her about them coming forward. He’d admitted to slightly lying to his mother about having not seen Asta in centuries before she called for him to tend her final days; that she had contacted him less urgently more than a year earlier, informing him that she had been concealing a child from him, a product of their short tryst after they first met, asking him to look after Darcy whilst she searched for a possibility of treatment for her family disease on Alfheim that may have been developed since her mother passed. That his distraction for the whole year and a bit before leaving for Alfheim most recently had been due to him getting to know his daughter, beginning to teach her magic, helping her cope with a drastic change going from complete isolation with her mother in the mountains to the center of a bustling city with her very-high-profile father. That Asta’s call had been to bring Darcy home to spend some final time together, as the disease had proven still untreatable and also at a much later stage than she thought it had been when she set out. 

After quite a bit of thought, he had decided it would be best to pre-empt the timeline conflicts of saying he’d only found out about her after going to Asta.

“You’ve kept a child secret from us for more than a year. Nearly two,” Frigga intones coolly, making Loki wince. He’s in trouble. He had known he would be, but is one ever truly prepared to face their mother’s ire?

“I have,” he confirms, trying to not sound as immediately chastised as he feels. 

Odin remains silent, and not even looking at Loki, instead staring down at the papers still, though Loki knows he isn’t reading them any longer. His father does this only when he is keeping an extremely tight hold on his temper, knowing that shouting and ranting will be immensely less effective than their mother’s icy disappointment and not wanting to give them a reason to shout back and start a proper row.

“Why.” she demands.

Pulling in a large breath, he defends his supposed decision. “It was an incredible shock, at first, to find out that I have a child. I’ve... I thought.... always been quite careful. Then there was an amount of doubt. I don’t believe Asta would have truly tried to lie, but I wanted to be certain on the off chance... then, once I was satisfied it was truth... To be perfectly plain, I wanted time to get to know Darcy and become accustomed to being a parent, as well as allow her to adjust to an already overwhelming amount of change, without interference or influence. And since returning from Alfheim....” he pauses to sigh and let his shoulders sag slightly in genuine tiredness from the long and rough planting season, “Darcy and I both needed time to grieve. It took nearly the whole planting season for her to be able to sleep on her own and through the night consistently again. She still has horrid dreams regularly. Being confined to my chambers here didn’t help; I had to more permanently move us to my house in the city so she would have more of a sense of freedom for at least part of the day.”

Talking about Darcy struggling with the death of her mother seems to largely do the trick in getting him partially in the clear, at least with Frigga, who he can see softening quickly. Odin appears unaffected, but it can take him time to work through a temper, so it may be some days, at least, before he calms towards Loki enough to truly process all of what Loki is telling them and sort out how he thinks he should feel or react. 

His mother maintains a mostly blank expression and he knows she’s forcing herself to stay on track rather than allowing her motherly sentiment to distract her, but the ploy had been effective. She’s much more sympathetic, her tone neutral rather than frigid. “And by what means did you ascertain that she is truly your child?”

“The usual tests for such,” he responds easily. He HAD actually done them recently, finding, as he’d expected, that his and Darcy’s magic is startlingly similar given that she isn’t the child of his body.

Frigga accepts that explanation, with a weary sigh. “Well, I expected it to be your brother coming to us with this sort of news, but at least you’ve already taken the measures to be certain.” She doesn’t mention that she’s fully aware he’s had to do those tests a few times before, for Thor and Fandral back during the time he would still travel with them, and that she trusts him to have done it properly. She’s the one that taught them to him for exactly that reason, after all, once she’d realized that a small group of mostly males in their late-adolescence galavanting across the Nine was a recipe for potential disaster. Being the responsible one, it had been up to him to, at the least, make sure there was actually something worth bringing to their parents instead of kicking up a large fuss over something which would turn out to be nothing.

With no response that wouldn’t sound impertinent, Loki says nothing.

After an uncomfortably long, tense, and thoughtful silence, Frigga eventually begins her interrogation, clarifying points she’d picked up from his tale, and he gives the shortest answers he can, moving into a fairly rapid-fire conversation to get through it quickly. “How old is the girl?”

“634.”

“You said this disease that claimed... Asta?... Is hereditary? Does the child have it?”

“Not as yet, but Asta and her mother both became ill and passed near their 30th century, so I shall remain vigilant in checking as she gets older.”

“You’ve begun teaching her magic already?”

“Asta taught her the Allspeak some time ago; I’ve begun training her in other areas.”

“She was raised in isolation until coming to you?”

“At Asta’s family homestead in the mountains of Alfheim. I was the first person she met besides Asta.”

“It was the two of you I saw in the market last year? In disguise?”

“Yes.”

“And the large commission from Hulda?”

“For Darcy. I struggled with what to gift her for her natality, so decided to acquire the next few years now to not worry about it again for some time.”

“Where is she whilst you attend your duties?”

“My chambers here in the palace, mostly. I left her at home with Mimir today. She’s quite anxious about how this meeting is going.”

“With Mimir?” Frigga’s brow raises slightly in surprise at that.

“The stubborn beast seems to think she is HIS daughter rather than mine. He’s quite smitten with her. Even once more options become available as people learn of her, I would struggle to think of a more dedicated and dutiful child-minder.”

“She knows you are here telling us of her?”

“I had to be certain she felt ready to begin meeting the rest of her family and eventually be revealed to the realm.”

Frigga seems to run out of questions at this point, but Loki knows there will be more as she has time to think on it and as more is revealed. Her eyes dart quickly over toward her still-stony-silent husband before declaring, “We will discuss when it’s appropriate to meet her, as well as to reveal her, at a later time.” With this, she collects all the various documents back into a pile and hands it back over to Loki, clearly dismissing him.

Taking the papers, he stands to leave at a measured pace, unwilling to look as though he’s fleeing even only to his parents.


	14. Chapter 14

Settling in front of her loom, pot of herbal tea with a steaming cup already full to help with her headache off to the side, Frigga sighs as she automatically begins the familiar, soothing motions of threading to begin a new bolt. Of all the things she never would have expected from Loki... Then again, he has a longstanding habit of defying expectations, be that by exceeding them or simply ignoring them.

A child. A daughter. Darcy Lokisdottir, from the birth records, which he has already signed to recognize the girl. 

Her granddaughter.

It has been some time since she was so glad she checks and strengthens the privacy spells around both her and Odin’s public chambers regularly. She can’t even recall offhand when they were last put to the test of him in a strop before today. 

As soon as the door had shut behind their son, Odin had released his grip on his temper, shouting for quite some time, her contributing little except to make a reasonable interjection when he paused to breathe, which inevitably set him off on his tangent again. Annoying and tiring as it is for her to weather through such, she knows it’s best that he get all the yelling and blind fury out as quickly as possible. Once the steam of initial emotion has run its course, he’ll begin to actually absorb and evaluate the situation.

After the shouting bit had played out, he had stomped off in the direction of his private training room to physically work out the remaining aggression, leaving Frigga to retreat to her weaving chamber to sort out her own many thoughts on the matter.

Both her sons being young adults, and knowing that Thor is more than a bit irresponsible in his personal matters, she had begun preparing herself to find out she is a grandmother quite some time ago. Finding out that it is Loki who recognized a child first was not something she had prepared for, though. That’s also not to say Thor certainly doesn’t have at least one child somewhere, very possibly older than Darcy, but there’s been no credible claims to date so far as Frigga is aware.

Part of her desperately wants to be overjoyed, but the rest of her is still working through the shock and strategizing how the situation should be managed from a political standpoint.

Loki had clearly already considered at least part of it; telling them nearly two moons before the harvest festival would begin would give them time to become familiar with the girl and allow them to reveal her to the realm during the regular celebrations rather than holding a special event, which would call even more attention to the situation. While it isn’t generally considered shameful or even particularly odd to have children out of wedlock (especially as the popularity of formal marriage has declined over the centuries), for one of the princes of the realm to be recognizing a child begot as such will be seen as scandalous. Most expect the royal family to do things the “proper” and “traditional” way, marrying the children off to form political alliances and producing heirs after that point.

Frigga will need to begin organizing lessons for the girl, to ensure her etiquette is appropriate. Who knows how much Loki has done to teach her about the comportment and manners that will be expected of her as a princess. She also needs to inquire about the lessons he’s giving the girl and fill in any gaps. If it hasn’t occurred to him to be teaching her aught but magic, Frigga will need to arrange appropriate tutors for history, arithmetic, and likely several other subjects as well. Weapons handling, as well, though she will be surprised if Loki has excluded that from his teaching. He knows Darcy will need to be, at minimum, basically proficient in combat, and he’s far too involved in his military duties for it to slip far from his mind.

Finishing her preparation of the loom, she pauses to drink some of the tea, noting that she had automatically set up the warp yarns to weave with Loki’s green, probably because it was he she was thinking about most, and she doesn’t know Darcy’s colors yet. That is another thing she will need to take care of as soon as she can - commissioning various yarns, threads, and bolts of fabric in Darcy’s colors. And be certain the girl is outfitted appropriately for her station. Frigga will need to have Reva come take the girl’s measurements; she won’t have time to produce much herself, and she trusts her friend and long-favored dressmaker to remain discreet until Darcy is revealed.

The bit of her mind that wants to be excited about a princess in the palace is already producing images of tiny, beautiful gowns and delicate hair ribbons.

Well, either Loki will get a new tunic from this bolt, or Darcy will have a dress in her father’s color.

Soon, she’s refilling her cup and standing to fetch a shuttle and the softest wool she has in emerald. As she anticipates being quite busy very shortly, she won’t have this bolt done quickly at all, so she might as well make it a weight for colder conditions, as she won’t begin actually constructing any garment from it until the harvest season.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

One of the lords from Ringsfjord is presenting a budget to the council and Thor knows he should be paying attention, but it’s the most boring sort of meeting from the variety of them he has to attend, and he can’t help his attention wandering to his family.

Odin sits at the head of the table, with Thor at his right and Loki at his left, as usual, but there’s a tension between Odin and Loki that is less usual. For all their differences and clashing viewpoints in other areas, Odin and Loki are typically of a mind on most political matters. They’re both deeply analytical and suspicious of all whom they do not trust (which is basically everyone), and so they work surprisingly well together. ‘Tis usually Thor at odds with either or both of them in this arena.

The tension is subtle enough that Thor expects the rest of the council either hasn’t noticed or has written it off as some minor thing bothering one or both of them. But Thor knows his father and brother too well for that.

Somewhat has happened betwixt them. They’ve been tense with one another for more than a week, Frigga playing patient intermediary at the few meals Loki attends now. The longer it goes on, the more Thor suspects Loki has finally revealed the child to their parents, though none of them has mentioned it to him at all. Perhaps he should confront Loki, to tell him he stumbled across the pair of them out in the wood more than a moon ago, that he knows he has a niece.

Honestly, the thing stopping him is not wanting to be pulled into whatever conflict is haunting the rest of his family. If Frigga is mediating, it is bound to be resolved soon enough.

Trying to push the nagging curiosity and worry from his mind, Thor restrains a sigh and refocuses his attention back to the presentation, despite being unable to care any less about the lord temporarily reducing the budget for Ringsfjord city’s road and bridge maintenance to boost the public relief fund, which had run low from the bad fishing season. From what Thor is gathering, the anticipated end result will not be different in any meaningful way to warrant the lord travelling to Asgard city and calling an out-of-cycle council budget meeting.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Loki stares incredulously, but unsurprised, at his brother. Thor is not stupid, but politics is not an area in which he naturally excels; he doesn’t automatically look beyond face value of things, think about the chain reactions on the wider scale. 

The rest of the council had called a break in the presentation and retreated to the midday meal, while Odin, Thor, and he had remained behind, ostensibly to coordinate something that was meant to be taken care of after the midday meal, but would require some rearrangement as this meeting would be running long. In actuality, they remained to briefly discuss what has been said so far and compile a list of things to speak on when the meeting resumes.

Now, Thor having just stated a lack of understanding about why this meeting is even happening, Odin and Loki trade a look, suddenly temporarily united again despite not having even begun to resolve their dispute regarding Darcy.

Odin almost growls out, “Explain briefly and compile the list of speaking points.” as he pushes his chair back from the table and stands to make his way to the meal.

Once the door is shut, Loki does as he’s been told to, flipping to a fresh page of his work notebook and beginning to make a summary list of the important points he’s taken away so far. “You may be hearing that this is just an odd and particularly tiresome budget meeting, but the things we are discussing have much wider consequences than some budgetary rearrangement. The fishing season is bad, which is going to cause a shortage and raise prices across the realm. The fisherfolk are not earning as much, so many will be pulling from the assistance fund to make up the gap in their livelihood, and people who buy the fish will be paying a premium, leaving them worse off both for the lack of general availability and financially. They’ll be buying more meat instead, which will raise prices on that across the board as the higher demand depletes the availability. Depending on how high the demand is, farmers and hunters may begin butchering earlier than usual to keep the current market for it supplied, but livestock and wild animals are both a finite resource and we can only acquire so much each year, particularly this late in the year when there isn’t time to initiate an extra round of breeding for most stock before the cold weather sets in. If stores aren’t sufficiently full before shipping routes become troublesome to navigate, it will create a food shortage during the cold season and into the planting season.”

He glances up to find Thor’s face to be a mixture of perplexed and surprised. Going back to his list, he doesn’t bother explaining all the particulars, instead generalizing in a statement of, “The effects will ripple out across every industry in one way or another. We need to be prepared for it, before it’s too late in the year and becomes a much worse problem.”

“How will we do that?” Thor asks, now sounding appropriately concerned about the situation.

“Most farms had a very high yield for the first harvest of wheat this year, as well as a few varieties of nuts and seeds from other plants that flourished more than usual in the planting season. Second harvest numbers aren’t fully reported yet but should be soon, and it’s looking like a good second yield as well. If rumors are to be believed, Alfheim may have a fair-sized meat surplus from a particularly good breeding season for their hogs, and Vanaheim always has more dairy than they will ever need. We’ll contact them about trading our surplus for theirs to bolster our storehouses for the cold season, but it will take an accounting of what we have available from every province, which will consume much of the little time we have, and the trades themselves will be in excess of our standing trading agreements, which will necessitate time for negotiations and create additional strain on the bifrost.” Loki lays out the basics of what is going to happen. It’s much more complicated than that, but Thor will have to take interest and make himself a part of the solution if he wants to truly understand more.

He hadn’t even begun with the repercussions of things like road maintenance being the shorted budgetary areas to support the assistance fund. Loki will need to contact all of the lords of the coastal provinces to review each individual changed budget, assess the impact, and draft a proposal for Odin to review to authorize supplementary royal funds to increase all of their assistance funds for a few years to account for knock-on effects and replace what had been borrowed from other areas. Ringsfjord is the biggest fishery province, and, as such, has seen the most immediate impact, but the others will be having the same issues before too long and as the different fishing seasons cycle through.

As he finishes his list and dries the ink with magic, he gets a surprise in his brother asking, in an oddly serious and concerned tone, “What can I do to help?”

Closing his book and sealing it with magic to protect it for the duration of the meal, Loki looks up again as he stands, Thor following his lead, and they move toward the door to take the meal as well. “I will begin contacting the other coastal provinces on the morrow. If you’d like to help me assess the responses as they come in, I can explain in greater detail all that is and will be happening.” He tries to be nice about saying that there’s not really anything Thor can do to help. But if his brother is finally becoming interested in learning about how, exactly, they as the royal family manage their realm, he’s willing to be the one teaching him at least some of it.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Darcy tries not to squirm where she sits in front of Loki’s dressing table at their house. She doesn’t have one of her own here yet - Loki said he commissioned one with the rest of her bedroom furniture, but it will all take awhile to be finished - and he’s doing her hair before he takes her to meet his parents.

Her grandparents.

She’s only ever seen either of them once before, one of the days last year when Loki had taken her down to the harvest festival. He’d pointed out Odin, who had been on the tournament floor fighting with another man with a long-handled weapon that Loki called a glaive, then he’d in turn pointed out Frigga, who was at the sideline watching the bout. Between that being her only personal reference of Odin in particular in addition to the stories about him in the history books she’s been reading, she’s most nervous to meet him. He sounds.... she doesn’t want to say scary, but it’s the closest word she has that fits her impression of him.

There’s much less written about Frigga. The books pretty much only mention her as being Odin’s wife, so she has less to speculate on.

Trying to stop worrying about it, she focuses on watching her father finish off the intricately-twisting braid he’d been weaving around her head just behind her hairline from behind one ear to behind the other. He’d been regularly adding her hair cream into the bits he used for the braid as he went, and now, after securing it with a bit of ink-stained string, he reaches for the tub again. Small section by small section, he smoothes the cream onto her damp hair, then twists the bit of hair around one of his fingers. She feels regular little puffs of his cool magic as he dries each one before moving onto the next.

Normally he doesn’t bother with this part, since her hair is curly like his anyway, but he knows she’s very concerned about making a good impression, so he’s taking the time to make them neater than usual. Darcy’s grateful.

She’s already in her light green dress with all the flowers, and one of the pairs of shoes he’d taken her to be fitted for before her natality. They’re stiff, flat leather soles with small loops protruding at intervals down the sides, which she’d been shown how to strap to her feet with long strips of leather or thick ribbons winding through the loops and criss-crossing over her feet before getting tied around her ankles to secure them. The sandal-like shoes are the most acceptable to her of all the ones she now has, and she’s already dreading the weather turning and her having to wear much less comfortable ones through the cold season. Especially now that she’s going to be places other than the house or Loki’s rooms where she can just be barefoot almost all the time.

The ribbons she’d selected for her shoes today are a green color similar to her dress, and she’d made the bows at her ankles as neat and pretty as she could manage. Even though they probably won’t even be seen.

Once Loki’s done with the loose curls that aren’t trapped in the braid, he carefully smoothes down a few spots on the braid itself while he dries that too. “What do you think?” he asks lightly, clearly trying to distract her from her nerves. It doesn’t work, but her hair does look really pretty, held off her face with shiny, black curls piling down onto her shoulders and upper back.

“Very nice,” she tells him, twisting to rise from the bench. “Thank you, papa!” she finishes while wrapping her arms around his legs in a quick hug.

He chuckles and rubs her back before sending her out of his room. “Go pick out your jewelry while I finish getting ready.” Letting go, she hurries out of his bedroom, pulling his door closed behind her, so he can change out of the light pj pants and tunic he’d been wearing all morning since he’d skipped training today.

Crossing the landing to go into her own bedroom, Darcy moves to her still-open wardrobe and pulls open one of the drawers inside to retrieve her little wooden box that she keeps her jewelry in. She has basically two sets of things; the ones Loki had given her for her natality last year, and the ones he gave her this year. The newer ones are her favorites at the moment, because they’re newer, but the twisting, swirly design on the pendant and earrings doesn’t match her dress as well as the flower ones from last year.

After more consideration than the decision probably warranted, she carefully picks up the flower earrings one at a time to push them through the holes in her earlobes and twist the little balls onto the back to secure them. Once they’re in, she spends another probably-too-long amount of time deciding on hanging the pendant from a strip of white leather instead of a chain or ribbon before doing so and tying it so the pendant hangs right in the middle of her collar bone, showing over the neckline of her dress.

She’s looking in the little hand mirror Loki had given her for times she couldn’t go use his, making sure the earrings are sitting just how she wants them, when she hears Loki’s door open again and him asking, “Are you ready?”

Quickly replacing the little mirror and her jewelry box into the drawer, she says, “No,” but goes out to join him anyway, following him down the stairs.

He’s wearing a rather typical outfit for him; green cloth breeches and the white tunic she’d embroidered with mint, his black leather belt around his hips over the tunic holding his pocket and belt knife. He pauses at the front door to pull on the stiff, black leather boots that he wears pretty much every time he leaves their house or rooms. A couple rings are on his hands, and a bracelet of what she thinks is solid gold wraps around one of his wrists. His hair isn’t slicked back as firmly as he used to wear it, and she thinks that his more recent habit of just doing enough so it sits back off his face but letting it be curly makes him look less severe.

Once his boots are buckled, he twists where he’s crouched, arm reaching out, and she steps into him so he can wrap it around her and stand. In a moment, they’re appearing in their rooms at the palace. She automatically tightens her grip around his neck and shoulders, not wanting him to put her down, and she feels him chuckle more than she hears it. 

“I’ll carry you there, but you’ll need to get down once we’ve arrived,” he warns before she feels his magic wrap much more lightly around them. This spell, she knows, is so nobody pays any attention to them, in case they encounter anyone in the halls. 

Stepping out of their rooms, Darcy can’t help but peek around as much as she can manage without removing her head from his shoulder. She’s only ever left his chambers this way a couple times, and the halls are always interesting to her. They look very different with sunlight flooding through them than during the night, as she had first encountered them. The decorations are big, in various vibrant colors, and the walls gleam a light goldish-tan color, the wood polished to a shine, carrying the sunlight from the open sitting rooms much further down the otherwise enclosed space than she would think possible.

On the walk to a different wing on the same floor, they pass a few other people, but she doesn’t lift her face to see who, and she can only assume that Loki’s magic is working as it always does as they aren’t acknowledged.

Two wings away from their rooms, Loki stops walking and crouches, making Darcy reluctantly lift her head as he sets her down. “The family suite is just around the next corner,” he murmurs quietly, and Darcy nods her understanding. “I’m going to keep the magic around you until we’re in private again, but I shall need to take it off myself for the guards to allow us entry.” She gives another nod, and he smiles reassuringly before standing again, pressing a kiss to her forehead as he goes. 

Darcy stays close to him as he starts walking again, taking her around a corner where she sees two absolutely MASSIVE doors, with a guard standing at either side of them. They both turn their heads to look at Loki as they approach, and he nods a greeting, getting the same in return.

Shortly, she’s slipping into the room behind Loki as he shuts the door he’d pushed open, and the magic falls away from her once it’s closed fully.

It’s like a bigger and lighter version of his sitting room, floor to ceiling windows looking out to a wide balcony. She sees plants and some tables and cabinets, but doesn’t take in much before Loki is softly grabbing her shoulders and turning her towards a sitting area. Freezing, she somewhat frantically examines the three people that are waiting for them. Her nerves are quickly increasing to a panic.

Just as gently as before, Loki pushes her to start walking again, moving them towards the others. Thor is smiling and looking interested as they approach. Frigga looks interested as well, and also has a slight smile, but Darcy thinks she’s probably holding back on whatever she’s feeling. Odin.... she thinks he looks angry. Or upset. Or something. But he’s also trying to hide whatever it is, a blank expression revealing little, but the stiffness all over the rest of his body tells a very different story to his face.

Still panicking, Darcy nearly misses Loki speaking. “Mother, Father, may I present your granddaughter, Darcy Lokisdottir.”

She almost forgets what she’s supposed to do, dipping down into the short curtsey Loki had taught her a breath after he finishes announcing her. He’d said to greet them as well, but she genuinely doesn’t think she can get her voice to work at the moment.

When it becomes obvious she isn’t saying anything, they start glancing from her up to her father, who she can’t see as he’s standing behind her. 

It’s Thor that eventually breaks the awkward silence, scooting further forward from his place on one of the chairs and bending to rest his arms on his knees to be nearly eye-level with her. “Hello, Darcy. I’m Thor. I’m quite excited to meet you.” He pauses but quickly gets that she’s probably still too tense to say anything, continuing, “That’s a very lovely dress. It reminds me of mother’s gardens in the late planting season. She has many flowers of all different shapes and colors. Have you ever seen them?”

Darcy manages to shake her head, but finds herself leaning back into Loki’s leg as she does. In response, he pushes her a few more steps forward before stepping to her side to claim a chair himself. Then, he lifts her easily up into his lap, letting her lean on his chest and wrapping one arm around her. 

“She’s seen a few of the public gardens, but not any of the private ones,” Loki explains on her behalf even as she minutely begins relaxing. 

She isn’t even sure why she’s so scared, which is also causing her some frustration with herself. It’s not like she’s never spoken to people before. And she had a whole big family back on Midgard; talking to grandparents and an uncle shouldn’t be making her act like this. She’s done that probably hundreds of times before.

Regardless of why, being on her father’s lap has helped her feel more safe. Frigga joins the conversation, asking if she enjoyed the gardens, having already caught on that yes/no questions will likely be the only ones to get any response for a while. She and Thor carefully try to draw her out by asking these questions, waiting for her to nod or shake her head, then Loki adding a little bit to explain for her.

Odin sits silently on the sofa next to Frigga, hard gaze piercing into her, and she tries not to look at him too much, instead keeping her focus on the much more friendly people that seem to actually be okay with her existing.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

The poor girl looks petrified.

Odin is hardly helping, very nearly glaring at her as she sits on Loki’s lap.

Frigga will be giving him what-for about that later. Their first grandchild being terrified of them is not acceptable, nor is it something that needs to be even a whisper of a rumor should someone outside the five of them catch on.

Darcy is utterly adorable, even with her features tight with anxiety. Even without looking at her magic, Frigga has no doubts that she’s Loki’s child. The hair is nearly identical, and the eyes are very similar as well, the same shape, though a very different shade of green. They may be even more vibrant than Loki’s. The cheekbones may be from him as well, high and framing her face well. The other features must be from the mother, and Frigga can’t say any of them are ill-suited. Angular brows, a well-proportioned nose, dark pink, bow-shaped lips.

She’s more readily providing a nod or shake of the head as the conversation tawdles on and she relaxes by a fraction. Feeling protected by Loki is obviously helping. Frigga has to keep reminding herself that the girl has hardly interacted with anyone but her parents, ever.

Most of that side of the conversation has come from Loki, as he lets her give her yes or no then provides some context - which garden had been her favorite when she saw them, her favorite flowers, that the pair of them had made the green dress and Darcy has done all the embroidery work herself, how she learned to embroider after coming to live with Loki near two years before, that the tunic he’s wearing, which had made Frigga question if he was courting not so long ago, had been one of her very first projects.

They’re interrupted with a knock and Frigga stands to go usher in the servants that will be delivering their midday meal.

Loki had sat he and Darcy with their backs to the door to block her from view, and the servants are in and out quickly, setting out a few platters and pitchers, and place settings for five already set out courtesy Frigga. As soon as the door is shut again, the rest of her family stands to make their way over to the dining table, while Frigga moves to begin pouring the summer-regular sweet honey wine with fruit in for everyone. As they settle, she notices Darcy looking pleadingly up at Loki.

Before she can wonder what it’s about, he’s shaking his head. “No, use your right. I know you’ve been switching for every meal I don’t eat with you.”

Darcy’s expression shifts to slightly disappointed as he begins filling her plate for her, the platters being too far for the girl to reach on her own.

Well. That didn’t make any sense. To her, at least, nor Thor, who also looks bemused at the small interaction. Odin continues his glowering as he serves himself and she sits down next to him. Deciding to give the girl a break, she inquires about the audits she knows Loki and Thor are conducting to resolve the fishing season problem. Well, that Loki is conducting, much slower than he typically would as he teaches Thor what he’s doing.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Loki closes Darcy’s bedroom door and sighs deeply. Today had NOT gone well. His only consolation is that Frigga had been very obviously displeased with Odin, so Loki won’t need to be the one to have that fight. Though that shan’t stop him from still making it obvious how displeased he is as well.

Darcy had frozen in her nerves, and Odin silently glowering at her all through their time with the family had not helped in the slightest.

Loki had managed to get Darcy to relax enough to say a few words when she was asked questions, but it had taken all through the midday meal and a full turn of the glass beyond it. Thor had been an unexpected aid in that. His brother had admitted more than a week ago that he had encountered Loki and Darcy on what Loki deduced to be her natality, and so had known about his niece for weeks before Loki had told their parents. Having had time to process the news, he’d confessed to being quite excited to be an uncle and how much he looked forward to finally meeting Darcy properly.

Thor’s easy and light manner, whilst not best suited for politics, had done wonders in dealing with Darcy’s nerves. Gentle questions and a subdued version of his typical enthusiasm had endeared him to the newest addition to the family quite a lot, and Loki suspects that Darcy will become rather closer to her uncle than either of her grandparents.

And he’s surprisingly alright with that. It’s not as though he has any reason to believe being close to Thor would be in any way a detriment to Darcy, and Thor has been behaving much more responsibly of late.

But for the moment, with Darcy off to bed, he retreats downstairs for another goblet or three of wine. 

He knows it will be a bad night for her after the stress of the day, so he might as well stay up to await the first bout of bad dreams. Despite skipping training today, he likely also won’t be going tomorrow with the amount of sleep he’s expecting to get.


	15. Chapter 15

Darcy stands unhappily in her grandmother’s weaving chamber as a woman moves around her, pinning the dress she’s wearing to fit her properly. This is the third such session in three weeks, and Darcy does NOT like such a fuss being made over her. Besides, what’s wrong with the dresses she and Loki had made? They’re more comfortable and she thinks they look better on her.... Even if a lot of these new ones are in her favorite dark-purple color that matches her magic.

Oh well. Loki said that most of the time it’ll be totally up to her what she wears anyway, so she can just keep wearing the ones she likes better. It just seems wasteful to have the amount of clothing she’s quickly acquiring for most of it to just hang in her wardrobe unworn most of the time.

At least she’s slowly getting better at being able to talk in front of other people. She still tends to tense up a lot when they’re doing their twice-weekly midday meals as a family and Odin’s there, but she’s a lot better around Frigga and Thor now. The only other new person she’s really had to interact with so far is the woman doing all the fitting for clothes, who doesn’t talk to her, so she isn’t expected to talk back. Instead, the woman, Reva, talks to Frigga about how things are fitting on Darcy and colors and necklines and sleeve styles. Frigga had made all the decisions, not even asking Darcy’s opinion, which Darcy is also unhappy about.

Her schedule has changed a lot in the past few weeks, and Loki had informed her it would continue to do so for some time as people find out about her and she starts learning all she needs to be a princess of the realm eternal.

Since getting back from Alfheim, her days had been simple. Loki would bring them to the palace while she was still asleep for him to go to training, she would wake up and go about her day basically as she would have before Alfheim, with him sometimes joining her for the midday meal instead of always going to the dining hall. When he was done for the day, he would come take her home, where they would have evening meal and spend the rest of the day taking care of the garden in the back yard that they’d planted together in the planting season, or doing various other chores or activities. Sometimes they would go out into town to pick up a few things from shops.

Now, the mornings are the same, at Loki’s insistence. He’d put his foot down on that with Frigga; Darcy needs the mornings to work on the tasks he sets her, which is basically her physical training and usually some magic-related reading. Her learning is already going much slower with such a limited amount of time to do it before he’s coming to have the midday meal with her before dropping her off somewhere to be at Frigga’s mercy for the subsequent four or five glassturns.

Darcy has gotten very good at telling time on the sort of mechanical hourglass thing that they use as a clock, looking at the one in Frigga’s weaving chambers as often as she can get away with, waiting for Loki to come pick her up again.

Some days are a lot of this - getting fitted for things, basically just standing as Reva works slowly but steadily, moving in circles around her and chatting to Frigga, who seems unbothered by the pace and uncaring if Darcy might be uncomfortable. Other days, there’s practicing what Frigga calls ‘comportment’, which is basically manners as far as Darcy can tell. How to sit properly (Darcy isn’t even sure how one sits IMproperly), how to drink various beverages from various types of cups (again, how do you drink the wrong way?), and other little things like having good posture (that one Darcy will admit to needing work on, she’s often slouching and spends her study time hunched over her books). Still other days are filled with different sorts of lessons. More school-type ones. Basically mostly reading and writing out answers to questions, very similarly to what she did at school in Midgard. One day, Frigga had set down a math worksheet (they call it arithmetic, but it’s just math) that she had apparently expected Darcy to take some time with, but Darcy had finished it in a quarter of a glassturn, surprising Frigga immensely.

Like math is hard. It wasn’t even algebra. Just basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Since Darcy couldn’t very well explain that she’d already learned that and more at a Midgardian school, she’d been forced to just shrug and tell Frigga it’s easy when asked about finishing the worksheet so quickly. After another glassturn of sitting and paging through an arithmetic text until Darcy found things she didn’t already know - what appeared to be some complicated logic problems near the back of the book with many terms she didn’t recognize-, Frigga seems to have declared her some sort of prodigy and vowed to set up lessons with one of the masters of accounts. Whatever that means.

Darcy’s favorite days so far had been the few that she’s helping Frigga in her private garden. Pulling up invasive weeds, harvesting herbs, even cutting flowers to arrange into vases inside.

Her thoughts and the conversation around her is interrupted by a knock at the door, spiked with Loki’s minty magic, making Darcy immediately smile and perk up, saying, “Papa!” happily before Frigga has even moved to answer it.

Frigga looks amused as she moves to go open it, and Reva looks at her curiously. “Loki,” Frigga greets her son as she lets him in, by now unsurprised that Darcy had known it was him. “I still have no idea how Darcy always knows it’s you.”

Loki kisses his mother’s cheek briefly as he enters and closes the door behind himself before moving toward Darcy to greet her in a similar manner. It’s Darcy that confusedly explains to her grandmother. “He knocks with his magic. Can’t you feel it?” She knows Loki had said it’s unusual that the pair of them are so sensitive to magic, but surely Frigga is familiar enough with her own child’s to sense it at least a bit?

Reva looks even more puzzled as she fusses about with some bits spilling out around her bag, while Frigga has a slightly astonished expression, and Loki grins.

When Frigga looks to Loki for an explanation, the one he offers is simple. “She’s even more sensitive than I am. I can’t do so much as tend something in the garden whilst she’s inside reading without her feeling it.” Then, making a show of looking Darcy over in the dress she’s currently being fitted for, he asks Darcy, “And how are you liking this one?” fully aware that she hasn’t liked any of the half-dozen that had come from previous fittings.

“The sleeves are too tight,” she answers immediately with the same biggest complaint she’s had about all of them. “And the neckline is too high,” is her only other major gripe with this one.

“Same as most of the others, then,” Loki accepts her comments evenly, as Reva looks between them with a slightly cross expression.

“Those are simple things to fix. Darcy, why didn’t you say you didn’t like the others?” Frigga questions, shooting a look that stops Reva saying anything before the other woman has a chance.

Shrugging a little, hindered by the too-tight-for-her-personal-comfort sleeves, she responds simply, “You didn’t ask.”

There’s a tense moment where Loki is visibly holding back some expression that Darcy couldn’t identify, then Frigga shakes herself out of it and concedes, “That is a very fair point. I have just been making decisions on your behalf without consulting you, haven’t I? How would you like the sleeves and neckline to be?”

It takes Darcy only a moment to indicate where the neckline would be more comfortable - a little lower both front and back, and wider out on her shoulders - then to move to pick up the dress she’d arrived in to show the sleeves that it had taken she and Loki nearly a ten tries to get so they’re both comfortable and look how she likes. They’re short and flowy, gathered up over the top bit, allowing her plenty of room to move. “The ones on most of my cold-season dresses are like this, too, but longer,” she finishes off her explanation, Frigga and Reva having already been discussing what would be needed for her as the weather cools after the harvest festival.

As Reva is slightly huffily cutting away some stitching around the existing neckline to pin the fabric where Darcy had indicated, Loki offers, “Darcy is quite active; looser styles in general are more comfortable for her. And she prefers tunics and breeches for daily wear over dresses. Though she is also rather loathe to don appropriate footwear for it.” He ends by shooting a teasing look at her, making Darcy scrunch her face up.

“I don’t like shoes,” Darcy pouts, knowing he’s quite a bit more amused than anything at her preference to be barefoot.

Before too long, Reva is shouldering her bag, re-fitted dress in it along with three others Darcy had tried on that day, to make the alterations with a warning-slash-order from Frigga that she’ll have the previous ones sent down on the morrow for the same and to make those the last of the warmer-weather dresses. Loki had been quite subtle about it, but definitely told his mother in the remaining conversation about Darcy’s wardrobe that it would be incredibly wasteful to have overmuch more made for a single season, else it would likely not get very much wear, as Darcy already has a technically sufficient wardrobe.

Frigga had taken the hint despite her obvious desire to continue dressing Darcy up like a doll. Once the seamstress is gone, Frigga sighs and comments, “I suppose the order of fabric in your purple shall be on hand for some time. Perhaps I was a bit overzealous.” It’s almost an apology, and Darcy will take it.

“Well, if you have a few measures of each weight brought up, I’m sure Darcy would like some tunics in her color. That can be a project for when she begins finding her embroidery tiresome,” Loki says easily, rubbing Darcy’s arm a bit as she now sits next to him, back in the dress she’d put on for the day earlier and leaning into his side.

“Of course,” Frigga agrees with a smile, back to a good humor as she watches them.”I shall spend my time weaving hair ribbons and trimmings instead.”

“I saw Hulda in passing today,” Loki slightly diverts the conversation, making Darcy pay a bit more attention. That name sounds familiar, but she couldn’t say when she’s heard him say it before. “I take it you’ve already informed her that we’ve a new princess to outfit? She mentioned having an appointment a few days hence to discuss styles and such, but that she’s already drawn quite a bit based on my commission from more than a year ago. Please don’t get caught up in that as well,” he pleads slightly with his mother, who gains a slightly bashful look, as though she had intended to do just that, “We have many centuries ahead to build up her jewelry collection, and there are no formal events scheduled for some great time. She won’t need much for quite a while, and I’ve already got several more sets prepared as gifts for coming years.”

That’s news to Darcy but she isn’t exactly surprised. He’d gifted her jewelry two years in a row, now, it makes sense he would have just had a bunch made at once to be prepared for future natalities.

“Very well,” Frigga reluctantly sighs out. “I will, at the least, have something made to pair with the dress for the opening day of the festival, though.”

The harvest festival, from what she’d seen and Loki told her, is generally quite casual, even for the royal family, but for the first day, when they’re opening it. They dress up a bit for that, he’d said, as it’s an official appearance to begin the celebrations. The rest of the days, however, they attire themselves much less formally, all of the adults participating in the annual tournaments and needing to move freely for combat.

“That’s fine,” Loki agrees. Darcy doesn’t say anything, torn between several emotions about her upcoming debut to the realm.

Before the conversation furthers, Loki excuses them. “Now, I believe Mimir shall be cross if he doesn’t get some time to dote upon you soon,” he directs down at Darcy with a smile, making her smile back. She loves her father’s mount. “And we need to stop at the leatherworkers to pick up the pockets I commissioned for you. You’ll need to begin carrying some things yourself soon.”

With that, they stand and give short goodbyes to Frigga, then depart the private chambers with Loki’s magic wrapped softly around Darcy.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Loki watches Darcy try to refrain from fiddling with her hair or the various things she’s wearing that are unfamiliar to her. She’s doing admirably well so far in masking how nervous she is.

Frigga had honored his request to not inundate the girl with too many new things. Darcy has quite enough change to be dealing with at the moment. Whilst he understands she needs to be properly attired for her station, that does not need to happen all at one moment, and an entire horde of new things for her to see and deal with would only add to her being overwhelmed.

Frigga had also, however, done all that she could whilst also honoring his request, with a number of various accessories appearing astonishingly quickly to augment Darcy’s wardrobe. At least she had taken on board his reminder to ask for Darcy’s opinion on things, so they’re all things Darcy likes. The more elaborate dress for the opening day of the harvest festival has the features Darcy finds more comfortable and then some. After the alterations to the simpler dresses, Frigga and Reva had evidently decided to run with them and had begun experimenting, with Darcy’s input, which Darcy had enjoyed quite a bit. Frigga had ended up with a new dress in a similar style as well, though quite a bit more adult. Loki anticipates some style changes to the fashion of the realm as Frigga begins accommodating Darcy and others start altering their own clothing to mimic it. 

This morning, Loki had prepared himself for the day early, knowing he would be spending more than a bit of time on the elaborately braided hairstyle that Darcy is trying very hard not to touch and muss up before the event has even begun, and suspecting that Frigga would be asking him to do her hair as well. It’s not something his mother asks of him often any more, but he HAD learned to do it all on her in the first place, and she still likes for him to style her on occasion just to have an excuse to spend some extra time with him. Loki doesn’t mind at all, but it isn’t exactly a fast thing most of the time. 

So, they’re in the family chambers he and Thor had resided in until they were old enough to want their own chambers for more privacy as they approached adolescence. In his mother’s dressing room, she sits on the bench in front of her dressing table, watching he and Darcy in turns through the looking glass. And she seems to realize that just sitting on a nearby sofa isn’t doing any favors for Darcy’s nerves.

“Darcy, darling?” she calls to get his daughter’s attention before setting her a small task to occupy her. “Why don’t you have a look through my jewelry cabinets and pick out what I should wear today?” she orders gently, pointing off to the wall at one side, which holds a series of glass-fronted cabinets with drawers below them, housing his mother’s very large jewelry and accessory collection.

Darcy stands and wanders over to begin examining the multitude of options, giving in to her nerves and fiddling with her own necklace as her eyes move slowly over the contents of the first one. 

Hulda had done an exceptional job with the design of this new set for Darcy, and it suits the flowing purple dress she’s wearing beautifully. In the gold alloy he’d had her design for Darcy, there’s a spiral armband that fits her upper arm now and will suit to move down to use as a bracelet as she grows, an elaborate necklace, dangling earrings, and hairpins and combs, all in a matching motif of delicate leaves of varying size, studded with flowers of the gem he’d picked for Darcy. It matches the embroidery on the dress perfectly - Reva must’ve had at least four others helping her to get all of that done in only a moon whilst also creating the other things she has AND making the new dress his mother is wearing. Vines of his green trail over Darcy’s violet dress, dotted with starflowers in a mix of bright orange and yellow. Around her waist is a sturdy chain that must have come from Hulda along with the jewelry, with a soft leather pocket in a light tan color that nearly matches the gold secured to one side.

Loki pretended not to notice that the pocket was handed to Darcy upon their arrival today already contained a small coinpurse, which in turn held some coin, certainly courtesy of Frigga.

Darcy has already once expressed a worry that she’s going to break the delicate-looking jewelry, and he had tried to assure her that that would be very difficult, but he doesn’t anticipate her wearing most of it often anyhow. She likes it, but it’s a bit much for her daily tastes.

As he finishes twisting his mother’s hair into braids of varying size, then weaving those together, Darcy slowly, piece by piece, comes over to deliver the jewelry she’s selected for her grandmother. Loki’s amused by some of her selections; she’s being quite thorough in examining her options. Some of the pieces he can’t honestly remember if he’s seen Frigga wear since he was about Darcy’s age, and one bracelet in particular he has no recollection of at all. Rather than the wave theme that Frigga generally selects for herself nowadays, Darcy is picking things in twisting knotted patterns. He wonders what she would pick out for him. He might have to have her look through his own collection one day. It’s entirely likely he hasn’t worn some of it in so long he’s forgotten he has them.

“I don’t believe I’ve worn this hair comb since before you could walk,” Frigga comments to him, reaching for the long, curved comb he’d been thinking about and running her fingers over it.

“I was just thinking I should have her go through my own collection to find things I used to love but have forgotten about as they ended up getting pushed aside for others,” he responds. “I don’t believe I’ve seen some of these earrings, or that circlet since I was her size.”

Frigga’s smile belies her grumbling tone as she admits, “Perhaps you were right to warn me off of having too much made for her too quickly.”

Chuckling, Loki tells her, “I understand the desire. I know you’ve always wanted a princess to dress up and dote over. And it feels as though we’ve missed so much already, it’s easy to give in to the urge to try to make up for it.”

Reaching for her cosmetic ointments, his mother begins applying them as he moves into the finishing stages of arranging her hair, saying, “I have. And it was difficult to realize I had been treating her like some sort of toy to dress up until you made it known that she didn’t like the things I was having made for her. I was so caught in my excitement that I entirely disregarded that she’s old enough to have her own tastes and opinions.”

“Considering she had never left the wood she and her mother lived in until this time two years ago, she’s astonishingly opinionated,” he informs her, immediately pushing away the lingering sadness at the mention of Asta. 

He doubts Frigga has had to deal with many of Darcy’s opinions yet, but he’s found that she tends to be quick to form them about things, though she isn’t very strong-willed in insisting on the things she prefers. He has to constantly remind himself to ask her what she wants, else she’ll just silently accept what she’s given even if she doesn’t particularly care for it.

“She’s so like you in some ways, it’s startling,” Frigga says wistfully.

Their conversation is interrupted by the soft sound of a closing cabinet and Darcy approaching a final time with a necklace to add to the line of jewelry. It’s another piece he doesn’t recognize, but it looks as though it may be from the same set as the comb. Darcy doesn’t retreat again, which he takes to mean she’s done picking things.

Instead, she moves to watch Loki weaving the intricate pattern of braids down the back of Frigga’s head.

“Did you put skin cream on today?” Frigga questions Darcy as she rubs her own tinted one onto her face to even her complexion. “We don’t need you going red from being in the sun.”

“Yes,” Darcy replies simply. It had taken her exactly one time not using the cream before a day out riding on Mimir to teach her why it’s important. She’d been pink and uncomfortable for about three days afterward, and hasn’t gone a day without putting it on since, even if she doesn’t expect to be outdoors much.

“Darcy, in the second set of drawers from the left, the bottom one, there should be a box of small hairpins with blue stones. Can you fetch them for me, please?” Loki requests, realizing there was only the one hair item in her choice of accessories and she likely hadn’t opened any of the drawers. The pins are the one accessory that’s actually needed for function, to hold the woven hair in place as it goes down Frigga’s back and doesn’t have the tension of being near the scalp to secure it.

It’s only a moment before she’s retrieved them, and he reaches in for one of the familiar pins. They’re the simplest his mother has that aren’t completely undecorated, and also the most plentiful by a fair margin, as they’re from when she was a girl in Vanaheim and favored simpler styles than she does now. Having another set of hands is actually helpful as he can have Darcy hold the box of pins ready in one of hers and also the bundles he’ll need to use them on to keep them in place as he goes about securing the first ones at the base of Frigga’s neck.

Before too long, he’s done and adding more pins further up than is strictly needed for the sake of utility, for decorative purposes, before he finds a place for the hair comb and carefully works it into the woven hair on one side of Frigga’s head.

“Lovely work, as always, darling,” Frigga says, turning her head to examine the style in the looking glass as he directs Darcy to leave the box with the remaining pins on the table. 

“And, as always, it’s quite a simple thing to make a flower beautiful,” he gives his standard response, getting a smile from her at the compliment. “Let’s let the Allmother finish her preparations in peace, Darcy. I’m certain the Allfather and Thor are already finding waiting tiresome,” he directs Darcy out of the room in front of him, ushering her through the corner on his parents’ bedchamber and out to the family sitting room. His father and brother are, indeed, there waiting, discussing the tournaments they’ll be competing in this year.

“Ah!” Thor exclaims happily upon noticing their appearance, “Such a lovely princess we have to present to the realm this day!” he’s grinning widely as he takes in his niece, done up for her first appearance to the public.

Glancing down as they approach the sofas, Loki finds color rising to Darcy’s cheeks, making him grin a bit as well.

Then, his grin has to be forced to stay as his eyes skip to his father, who only looks over to catalogue Darcy’s appearance blankly. Odin has at least become less hostile about the matter of Loki recognizing a child out of wedlock, but he has yet to actually speak to his granddaughter either. Often, on the occasions that they’re in a room together, Odin will do little more to acknowledge her than to run a calculating gaze over her, as though he’s evaluating if she is yet what he would consider an appropriate representation of the royal family.

It’s been difficult for Loki to refrain from berating his father for his treatment - or lack thereof - of Darcy. She’s still incredibly nervous of her grandfather, and the longer this goes on, the more Loki fears there will never be a time that they are any more than passing acquaintances in the very distant future. His only consolation is that he knows Frigga is just as cross, and has a much more advantageous position to work on making Odin accept Darcy faster.

Darcy moves to climb up onto the sofa next to Thor, who has continued to chatter at her about the festival beginning, obviously trying to distract her from her nerves. Before Loki can sit, there’s a strong knock on the door, and he moves to let in the Royal Guard who have been selected to escort them today.

Ull and Alva are the first in, and he’s unsurprised. Ull has been his father’s dearest friend since the two were children, and have fought many battles at one another’s side. There is no other person his father trusts more. Alva, in turn, is the personal guard that had been with Frigga since before she married Odin, coming with her from Vanaheim. Behind them come Sif - whose turn it must be to escort Thor as she and the warriors three trade off any time there’s escort duties to be done - and Egil, a longstanding if not very close friend of Loki’s, as they had been the two odder boys all through training and had tended to stick together for the sake of some solidarity and companionship. Egil often volunteers to be Loki’s escort guard, many of the other royal guards not very keen on the duty, given Loki’s propensity for mischief. 

Greetings begin then end abruptly as the guards, one after the other, spot Darcy.

With a smirk, Loki introduces them, having already told his daughter that, should anything happen and he, Thor, or Frigga are all unable to be at her side, she is to go to one of their personal guard for the day (preferably his) or, else failing, to flee toward the mounts and find Mimir. “Darcy, these are Ull - the Allfather’s guard-, Alva - the Allmother’s-, Sif - who will be guarding your uncle-, and my guard, Egil. Guards, apologies for not forewarning that there will be an additional charge for you to mind this day. We have been keeping Princess Darcy quite secret in preparation for her debut at the festival.”

Three of them look to be varying degrees of surprised, understandably, while Sif looks shocked and betrayed, likely at Thor having kept the secret from her more. Darcy, putting on a brave face, manages to flash a mostly-genuine smile at them.

The guard all manage a greeting to the family at large as they shake themselves from their surprise, and Egil turns slightly to make eye contact with Loki. Without saying a word, Egil understands that Loki will be expecting him to be responsible for his daughter and accepts the charge with a discreet nod. Loki’s not surprised. Between them having been companions since they were children, Egil’s devotion to his duty as a royal guard, and the fact that Egil has a small daughter of his own at home with his partner, Loki expected nothing else from him.

He’ll definitely have an evening of explaining to do to his friend in the near future, but Loki’s fine with that. For now, the existence of his daughter is being accepted without question and she’ll be more than adequately protected throughout the festival.

Abruptly, Frigga emerges, having donned a bit more cosmetic about her eyes, and select pieces of her ceremonial armor, as the rest of them but Darcy are also wearing. Loki’s the only one who had opted for the leather version of his, but he had done so knowing that he will inevitably end up carrying Darcy a fair amount today, and the bronzed-steel of his armor would make it unnecessarily difficult.

Odin and Thor both stand upon her appearance, Darcy following suit, hopping down from the sofa and immediately moving back to Loki’s side. 

“Are you ready?” he asks her quietly as everyone makes final preparations to leave the private chambers. She only shakes her head and leans into his leg, prompting him to rub her back under the two bundles of woven hair. “It won’t be so bad. You’re far too adorable for anyone in the realm to dislike.” he teases her gently, making her turn her face into his thigh to hide from the small embarrassment. Chuckling, Loki bends to lift her, knowing Odin won’t slow their pace to account for her small stride. As they move into their standard formation - Frigga and Odin side-by-side in the lead, Loki and Thor just behind them, now with the addition of Darcy, and the guards all abreast at the back - he mumbles quietly, “Brave face. Try to relax and have fun.”

She nods and pulls her shoulders back into a more proper posture, as Frigga has been coaching her for several weeks, head held up instead of hiding as he knows she wants to.

Their path to the main stairway and down is lined with the servants and guards who will be staying back to mind the palace, and resultant whispering breaking out as they pass rather than the usual well-wishes for the day. His family all maintain a casual chat about the impending festival as they walk, Loki interjecting his own comments occasionally around trying to silently and discreetly offer some comfort to his daughter. The guards behind them are silent and watchful, as always. They’ll relax as things go smoothly and the day progresses, but it’s their job to be on guard, so it always takes some time of things progressing well before they’ll begin chatting amongst themselves.

Just outside the main doors, the family’s mounts await alongside their guards’, all looking quite handsome in their own ceremonial harnesses. Mimir looks haughty as ever, the tooled black leather harness matching Loki’s armor and nearly disappearing over his mostly-black fur. The beast spots Darcy in Loki’s arms and immediately becomes excitable, shifting and visibly fighting his own training to not meet them halfway to greet his favorite person.

“You certainly weren’t jesting about Mimir loving her,” Thor comments with a chuckle to match the one emerging from Loki. 

“He’s been getting increasingly cross that I’ve been transporting us to the palace magically each day rather than riding,” Loki says as they approach their mounts. “I expect he shall be rather pleased that we’ll be riding most days after the festival is through.”

Mimir may be pleased at hearing that, or he’s otherwise just pleased about Darcy’s presence in general as he immediately greets them by shoving his face at the juncture where Darcy’s belly rests against Loki’s chest, rubbing his scent glands over the both of them possessively. Darcy smiles more brightly with a giggle as she reaches down to scratch his favorite spot below his ears and greets him, “Mimir, you just saw me this morning!”

The mount doesn’t care, he’s never less happy to see her. Loki has to deliver some news that will be less well-received, however. “Mimir, I need to introduce Darcy to the others. We’ll only be a moment.”

As he predicted, Mimir immediately gains a grumpy expression, ears twisting back slightly and eyes narrowing as he makes an unhappy grumbling noise.

“Mimir!” Darcy chides him. “Be nice! I’ll still be riding with you and papa.”

Laughing, Loki maneuvers them to go down the short line of mounts, their family waiting and watching, Frigga and Thor introducing her to their mounts, Kaija and Audun, while Loki has to introduce her to Sleipnir in Odin’s stead. Stubborn old man. The mounts need to know she’s family and to be protected, but he won’t even tell his mount who she is.

After a few moments of even Odin’s stubborn old mount becoming as enamored of her as Mimir is, they’re returning to Mimir, who immediately ignores all propriety and lays down so Loki and Darcy can mount easier. This draws full and ringing laughter from his mother and brother as well as a couple of their guard, who are all used to his hard-headed mount being quite contrary. Around them, the muttering and whispering that had followed them through the palace is spreading through the crowd and down the lines of people on either side of the road leading through the grounds and out the gate to the city.

Word about a child that looks strikingly like him, on his mount in front of him, will precede them by some fair amount.

Settling astride Mimir even as the rest of his family mount in the more typical way, he arranges Darcy to sit with her legs to one side in the style they’ve practiced a few times at home the past few days, and Mimir stands again. “Why couldn’t I have just worn breeches? I don’t like riding this way,” Darcy complains for nowhere near the first time.

“You’ll become accustomed to it soon enough, darling,” Frigga responds from her mount arms-reach away, where she sits in the same style, rearranging her skirts slightly where they sit over her legs. “And it isn’t often we need to ride in gowns. You’ll be free to wear what you wish for the remainder of the festival.” Everyone settled, their mounts maneuver into the same formation they’d walked down in before moving at a stately pace down the road.

_p_a_g_e_b_r_e_a_k_

Their progress is slow and Darcy tries not to think about the seemingly-endless crowd lining the road, many staring and pointing at her. It’s uncomfortable to sit not-quite straight forward with her legs thrown over to one side of Mimir, but at least Loki is keeping one arm around her stomach to help her balance. She doesn’t understand why she can’t just sit correctly, even if she has to wear a dress. So what if people see some of her legs? It’s not like she’d be showing any of her private parts.

Loki and Thor are back to talking about the tournaments they’re competing in, and other people that they expect to see in them, and it at least gives her something else to focus on. Frigga and Odin are still talking too, but they’re too far away now for her to hear what about.

“And what of our fair Princess Darcy?” Thor diverts the conversation after he and Loki discuss whether or not Loki should compete with a mace as well this year or stick to his daggers and throwing knives. “Will you be competing in the children’s tournaments?”

His voice carries even when he doesn’t mean it to, and there’s a new frenzy of talking as people begin repeating her name for any who didn’t hear.

“Not this year,” she replies to her uncle after a prodding nudge in the stomach from her father. “I’ve only been properly training again for less than a season. Papa doesn’t want me to reinjure my shoulder doing too much too soon.”

“What about the footraces?” he continues his questioning, by now aware of how she’d injured herself the year before.

“I’m not very fast yet,” she says. Loki had warned that her conditioning would be getting more and more intense once she starts also working with the combat trainers, so she has no doubt she’ll be getting better with running and strength related things, but she’s still quite small. Privately, she thinks she probably won’t ever be fast enough to do the footraces, if only because she doesn’t think she’s going to be very tall. Even on Midgard, she’d been short for her age, and here doesn’t seem to be any different. Reva and Hulda had both commented on it. “I wanted to do the mounted races, but papa says it wouldn’t be fair for me to compete on Mimir against children who don’t have war-mounts to ride,” she laments.

“No, that wouldn’t be very fair, would it?” Thor agrees with Loki, sounding amused, before offering an idea, “Perhaps we might see about organizing a separate mounted race for the warriors’ children who do have access to war mounts? Or shall we get a more standard one for you, so you might be familiar with it and compete next year?”

Mimir’s ears immediately go flat against his head and his head shifts back slightly in Thor’s direction with a snarl. “Mimir! What did I tell you before we left the palace?” Darcy chastizes the temperamental mount.

Loki and Thor both laugh as Mimir turns forward again, less severe but still clearly unhappy.

“Well, clearly you competing the normal mounted events will not be an option for some time,” Thor concedes that Mimir will not be letting her ride another mount anytime soon if he can help it. “I shall speak with the master of events about organizing a separate racing division, but it may be too late for this year. It should be no trouble for next, though. The adults’ mounted races are split to account for it already.”

“I didn’t expect to be able to compete this year,” Darcy shrugs it off, though she’s excited at the prospect. The mounted races are the only thing she thinks she may have any sort of shot at making a good showing in anytime remotely soon. They’d also been the most exciting events she’d watched last year, and they just seem fun.

The crowd had been getting denser and denser as they progressed, nearing the biggest market square in the middle of the city, and there’s a sudden switch as the buildings give way to the open space packed with people and stalls and towering barrels of ale and wine. There’s rows of food vendors already doing bustling business selling everything from baked sweets to fresh-roasted meat straight from spits over fire pits.

Their path closes up behind their guards as people try to get as close to the raised platform in the center of the square as possible. 

Dismounting is easy, Darcy just needing to slide a bit and make a short hop down from Mimir’s back to one side of the wooden platform next to Frigga (Thor and Odin having gone to the other side) as the guards continue around them to dismount at the four corners of it. In a moment, the family are arranged in the middle and a hush slowly falls as people can’t seem to help pointing and talking still until people around them shush them.

Once it’s quiet-enough, Odin’s voice begins booming out over the crowd, but Darcy hardly hears a word he says. Firstly, she’s distracted by the lemony tang of what must be her grandfather’s magic as he makes it so the whole crowd will hear him. She catches some words here and there that give her a general idea what he’s saying (something about gratitude for a bountiful harvest and celebrating our allies and some other stuff along the same lines) but her attention is held mostly by watching the crowd split their attention between Odin and her. Many don’t even bother with splitting it, continuing to just stare at her and talk to the people they’re with.

As she stands in front of Loki and Frigga, each of them with a hand on her shoulder, she can’t help but be grateful that there’s a space being kept clear all the way around the platform. The sides each have spaces where long metal tubs hold smoldering fires, and tables where food is being prepared to hand out. The front and back have stacks of kegs and tables of giant glass mugs waiting to be filled with ale and handed out. They’re the opening-day offerings from the palace to the people for the celebrations.

And Darcy’s glad, both for the royal family feeding people and the physical distance from the crowd. Being among them last year had been exciting fun. Being on this side of things, openly stared at and talked about, is terrifying. 

Before she really knows what’s happening, a massive keg and a wooden stand for it are being hefted up onto the platform, and Odin is taking a mallet and tap to open the first keg. Once he’s hammered it in and filled a mug, he raises it to the crowd, getting a huge cheer in response as palace servants below tap more kegs and start filling glasses.

More servants start bringing more things up to the platform as food and drink begin getting handed out to the crowd. Four big, sturdy chairs, which are set around a table, and she sees some simple platters waiting at the edge to be brought up to them. “Highness, shall we fetch a fifth-” one of the servants begins to ask Frigga a question only for Loki to interrupt.

“No, she can sit with me, though we will need a fifth plate and a cup of mead rather than ale,” her father requests.

Darcy doesn’t like ale. She’s tried sips of a few different types from his cup when he drinks it at home and can’t get past the bitterness. She much prefers the mild sweetness of mead, if she’s going to have one of the common fermented drinks.

Before long, she’s climbing up onto her father’s lap while a metal cup, a mug of ale, and two plates are set before him. There’s no utensils, but they don’t really need them; all the food is served on bread or thin skewers. Platters are walked around for the guards to take something to munch on as they stand alert, and the family starts eating, trying to resume conversations over the loud crowd surrounding them.

“Mother,” Thor begins after a few bites and long drinks of his ale, “Darcy wishes to participate in the mounted races. Alas, Mimir will not allow her to be astride another mount. I thought we could see about arranging for the childrens’ races to be split as the adults? Surely there are other children of warriors who might have access to their parent’s mount but not any standard one who would also want to participate.”

“I’ll speak with Geir, but it will likely be too late this year,” Frigga responds, echoing Thor’s earlier comment. “But if we plan to implement it next, it will give all who wish to participate a chance to train.”

“Let us just plan for next year and speak to Geir when this week is finished,” Loki cuts in. “He has plenty to be getting on with; we needn’t ask him to take on another task at such short notice.” The conversation wanders on, but Darcy stops listening. It sounds like more of the things they’ve been talking about pretty much all day.

Instead, she tries not to look out at the crowd too often to see them still staring and talking about her, and makes herself eat her food and drink her mead. It’s all delicious, but she’s found she doesn’t have much of an appetite with hundreds or possibly thousands of people staring at her.

She suddenly has a lot more sympathy for the zoo animals back on Midgard. This isn’t fun at all.


End file.
